The Scorpion and the Rose
by Same-Old-Anti-Faerytale
Summary: A Rose is a beautiful flower, that if not for it's thorns, would be taken advantage of. A Scorpion is a creature of the cold desert night, that kills anything that poses a threat. Who will be victorious when all is said and done? Rated M for language and suggestive themes.
1. Dethroning

Rose made her way down the corridor. She had one thing on her mind, setting that sexist jerk straight. There were so many things she wanted to say to him that she would never dare to in public...there were also things that she wanted to say to him that she would never say out loud. But that was completely beside the point.

Rose quickly shook the thought from her head. He was a menace, and the only thing she was going to give him was a piece of her mind.

'What are you saying Rose?' she thought to herself. 'You hate him. Despise him. _Loathe_ him. You can't stand his very presence. Get it together; you're going there to yell at him for his behaviour today and nothing more.'

Early that day, her nemeses took the liberty of making her the laughing stock of their entire transfiguration class when she accidently bumped up against him on her way to hand in her exam. This wasn't the first time he had done something to belittle her in some way. He seemed to derive a sick enjoyment from it. So when she found a note waiting for her in the Hufflepuff common room earlier that night, she was utterly baffled.

_I cannot believe the way I acted today. I want to apologize in person. Meet me in the unused classroom on the fifth floor at 11:00 tonight._

_-S.M._

That was where she was headed now.

She turned the corner and there it was: The door to the old Defense against the Dark Arts room. It was the same classroom that her mother and father learned the skills that they would later use to help the famous Harry Potter, her uncle, defeat Lord Voldemort. It had been closed as a classroom after the battle, and the new class was now held on the second floor.

She stood outside the door for a brief moment, her hand on the knob. She took a deep breath, turned the knob and threw open the door.

"You're unbelievable, you know that?" Rose said forcefully as soon as she saw his freakish shock of white-blond hair.

"I can say the same about you," Scorpius countered, his words were just as fierce as hers. He got up from the desk he was sitting on towards the front of the classroom and walked towards her. They met each other halfway, as if they were about to duel.

Rose stared him down. "So, why have you called me here? Hm? Want to insult me more, where no one can hear you?" she huffed. Well, I'll let you know I can have as nasty a mouth as you can."

Rose caught herself. Did she actually say that? Images raced through her mind, and she regretted even speaking.

"Is that a promise?" he teased. His trademark smirk curled across his face.

Rose glared at him. "Oh you know what I meant!"

"Yes I do, but do you?"

"Stop twisting my words Malfoy!" Rose yelled, her frustration building. "You know full well how much I loathe your presence."

"If you loathe me so much why did you show up?" Scorpius challenged.

"I came here to give you a piece of my mind!"

"Is that all?" He raised his eyebrow suggestively.

Rose could sense the enjoyment he was getting out of this, which boiled her blood even more.

"I am sick and tired of your sexist comments, of you twisting my words. You treat me like I'm a piece of meat, one that doesn't quite meet your ridiculous 'standards' nonetheless, and I've had it up to here," she narrowed her eyes at him. "You act all high and mighty, but the truth is your nothing but a fucking dog!" After the words came tumbling out of her mouth she took a deep breath.

She had expressed similar sentiments repeatedly during their fighting over the years, but there was a certain air about her current words that was different, more raw.

There was a long period of silence. Scorpius looked at the ground, the smirk clearly wiped off his face with the force of what she had said.

"I'm sorry," Scorpius finally whispered.

Rose couldn't believe what she was hearing. "What?" she asked for conformation.

"I'm sorry," he said louder this time. He raised his eyes from the floor and locked them onto Rose's.

Despite her rage, the mysterious and stormy quality of his light gray irises captivated Rose. Even she had to admit that they were quite alluring.

"Oh," was all she could manage to say.

She then noticed a change in Scorpius' visage. The seemingly genuine apologetic expression disappeared as Scorpius was able to gain control of himself again. He quickly pieced his normal mask back together after the ferocity of Rose's words had shattered it.

"I told you I had asked you here so I could apologize, and what do you do as soon as you walk in the door? You attack me!" his voice was now filled with anger.

"Well, I...I" Rose stuttered, taken aback by Scorpius' rapid change in emotion.

"You what?" Scorpius' defense was building back up again, and he continued to press on. "You make me out to be the bad guy, but you don't take into account that you're also at fault here. You're always so quick to attack without hearing the other person's side of the story."

"The other persons side of the story?" Rose asked amazed. She had regained her footing now that the old Scorpius she knew full well had returned. "And what, pray tell, is your excuse for being such an arse?"

"You," he retorted taking a step closer.

"Me? That makes no sense what so ever," she insisted also taking a step closer to him.

"Oh, it makes perfect sense. Don't you realize that you're a force that needs to be reckoned with?" He reached up and tightly gripped the bicep of her right arm. "Unruly women need to be put in their place, and I, am here to put you in your place, Rose Weasley"

"Let. Go. Of. Me." Rose demanded through clenched teeth.

Scorpius leaned in closer to her. The proximity made Rose uncomfortable, "No," he whispered in her ear.

Rose knew it shouldn't have, but his voice sent chills down her spin. Not frightened chills, chills of another origin.

Rose took a gulp of air, trying to cope with her newly invaded space. "Scorpius, I'm sorry that you have such a close minded view of women, but don't get me involved," she managed to say steadily.

Scorpius slackened his grip on her, disappointed that his desired reaction out of her was starting to fade away. Rose took the chance to dash for the door.

She tried opening it, but it was locked. She instinctively reached into her pocket for her wand, only to remember she had left it in her room. 'Oh perfect' Rose thought, angry with herself. This wasn't the first time she had forgotten to keep her wand on her person.

She turned around to see that Scorpius was only inches away from her again. How the bloody hell was he able to move so fast, and so quietly?

"Unlock the door," she said almost breathless. His closeness frightened and thrilled her.

"No."

"Unlock the door," she repeated, this time stronger.

"No," he replied again more forcibly.

Rose rolled her eyes, and pushed past him. She headed towards the opposite end of the room, the farther from him the better.

"Just admit it Rose; you can't win," Scorpius claimed, sitting on top of the desk closest to him.

Rose scoffed as she turned to look out of the gigantic windows.

"You know it's true."

"Maybe in your world," she muttered.

"Well don't you know Rose, it's a man's world, and I am one of those men."

"More like a delusional teenage boy whose main goal in life is prehistoric. I mean, Merlin, Scorpius do you hear what you're actually saying? It's a load of B.S. Sure, the world used to run like that, with men controlling women, but news flash: it's no longer the 1800s! We live in the 21st century. 'The times they are a changin'.' Women are treated like fellow human beings, not property. We have feelings and wants to, you know?"

"And what do you want, Rose?" Scorpius asked, his voice sincere.

'Merlin, stop doing that!' Rose thought to herself. 'Why can't he just act like he normally does, instead of throwing these "sincere" curve balls? You'd think he was legitimately mad!'

"What's it to you?" Rose finally said, bitterness dripping from her words.

"Everything and nothing." Rose could hear his smile through his words.

"Wait, what?" Rose turned back to face him, confused. She was glad that he had not moved from his spot.

"You heard me," was all he responded with.

"Scorpius, you aren't making any sense. Please just...leave me alone!" she turned around again to face the window. She made herself focus on the full moon that dominated the sky, casting the shadows of the trees on the virgin snow.

There was a long period of silence and Rose was almost convinced he had left.

"But, I can't" Scorpius' voice whispered in her ear.

It wasn't until Scorpius' hands slid around her waist that Rose realized just how close he was. She stood there frozen, not knowing what to do. Her brain said 'No, this should not be happening! He's a jerk! He just sees you as a prize to be had!' but her body was actually _enjoying_the tingling sensation that arose from the electricity between them.

'Merlin, Morgan, and Maeve! Please someone save me!' Rose inwardly pleaded. She desperately wanted someone to burst through the door. She regretted not telling her friend, Nemo, what the note was about after he had asked her only a half an hour before. Maybe if she had, there would still be hope.

"I want you Rose," he whispered in her ear. "You're the only girl whose ever opposed me, it's...it's...sexy,"

'WHAT THE BLOODY HELL? Did he just call _me_ sexy?' Rose couldn't believe what was going on here. It must be a dream. No a nightmare. 'It's a nightmare' she corrected herself. 'Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!'

But she couldn't wake up, because she was already awake. Everything was so real: his breath on her neck, the light of the moon washing the colour out of his hands that already looked pale against her black robes.

'No, this cannot be happening. Rose, on the count of three you are going to break away from him and set him straight.' Rose commanded herself. 'One. Two. Three!'

She willed herself to move, but no matter what she wouldn't budge. Her body and her brain seemed painfully disconnected.

Scorpius seemed fully aware of Rose's inner struggle, and Rose could see his smirk reflecting in the glass.

"Please, Scorpius" Rose asked not exactly knowing whether she meant for him to let go, or for him to finish what he had started.

"As you wish," he let go of her and took out his wand. Rose's heart jumped with anxiety. Would he hurt her? He muttered a spell, and for a split second Rose was terrified. When he was finished, the door clicked and creaked open, allowing Rose passage to not only leave, but for relief to wash over her.

She waited a moment before she dashed out of the room. When she reached the door, she took one last look behind her. There was Scorpius, his eyes still on the window, a satisfied smirk on his face. Rose had done exactly what he planed she would do.

"A Rose is no longer dangerous after someone has plucked her thorns out," he muttered to himself after she left.

Or so he thought...


	2. Removing the Stinger

Rose's eyes shot open. Her pupils dodged back and forth, taking in the environment. Yellow curtains surrounded her. Rose could feel a mattress beneath her. She was in bed. Her bed. She breathed a sigh of relief.

No sooner had she begun to relax, but her body tensed up again as the memories from that night flooded back to her. Had it been real?

She rubbed her eyes, and pushed herself up. Pulling the curtains open on her left side, Rose saw the unkempt bed next to her was empty. She kicked the sheets back and lifted her legs out of bed. The clock on her nightstand gleamed a golden 10:45.

"Shit!" she exclaimed as panic struck her for an instant, but then she remember that it was Saturday. Rose had missed breakfast, but thankfully none of her classes.

She stood up, grabbed the black towel that was folded over the end of the bed, and headed into the adjoining bathroom.

Thirty minutes later, she had exited the Hufflepuff common room and was headed to the great hall. She was the only member of the Weasley/Potter clan that hadn't made it into Gryffindor. To some degree she liked being on her own, the first Weasley to get into Hufflepuff, but mostly she missed being with her family. She was eight floors below them at the school, the Hufflepuff dorm being located in the dungeons like Slytherin, and she felt the distance.

When she turned the corner she reached the staircase that the Hufflepuffs shared with the Slytherins. She stopped for a moment, and reached into the pocket of her skirt. Her hands clenched around a small folded piece of parchment. She pulled it out, and as she looked at it her heart immediately sunk. Sure enough, there was Scorpius' long elegant handwriting. 'Damn, it wasn't a dream after all,' she thought.

She sighed, and shoved the letter back into her pocket. Looking towards the Slytherin hall, she half expected to see him emerge with that stupid smirk still glued on his face. She bit her lip in anxiety and quickly dashed up the stairs. All she wanted was to find Albus, or even her annoying little brother.

When she reached the great hall, she saw neither of her family members so she decided to head up to the 7th floor in hopes to find Albus, Hugo, or Lily near the portrait of the Fat Lady. She was practically running through the corridors as her mind attempted to comprehend the night before. 'I can't believe I let Malfoy take control over me like that. I'm so stupid, stupid, stupid!'

Rose was so lost in thought, that she hadn't seen a long pants leg extend out into her pathway. When her foot connected with it, she came crashing down onto the cold stone floor.

Pain slammed into her knees and quickly drowned the rest of her body. She felt a warm stream of blood pool from the puncture wound on her lips, caused by her teeth when they clenched as her jaw hit the hard ground.

She laid there on the floor for a moment waiting for the pain to subside a bit before pushing herself up into a sitting position. Rose looked up to see who her assailant had been.

A group of five Slytherin boys were standing in the hallway. The tallest of the boys was leaning against the window, his white-blonde hair illuminated by the winter sun, a look of horror on his face. "Malfoy!" she exclaimed in an infuriated breath.

"Knight!" he scolded, punching the boy standing next to him in the shoulder. "What the hell did you do that for?"

Rufus Knight, a short 4th year with mousy brown hair and a skeleton like frame, looked at Scorpius in disbelief. "W'at? Itsa Weasley," he smirked.

"'_It_ is a lady, and you do not trip a lady no matter what her surname is," Scorpius chided.

"But, I thought we 'ated 'er," Rufus replied, dumbfounded.

Rufus wasn't the only one puzzled by Scorpius' behavior. Rose watched in amazement as Scorpius slapped Rufus on the back of the head and gave him a dirty look. He then took a step to her.

"Here," he said, holding his hand out to help her up.

Rose looked up at him in disbelief. There was no way she was going to take his hand, even if he was being sincere about it. She ignored it, and pushed herself up. Her knees stung, and she looked down to see that they were scrapped up pretty badly.

Scorpius noticed as well. "Let me take you to the infirmary," he offered.

"No, I got it," Rose insisted. She knew that this was just the more positive side of Scorpius' sexist attitudes. "You want to save the damsel in distress, because I'm just a weak female, and you're a strong powerful male. Yeah, right," she rolled her eyes. 'If he really was concerned about my well being he would have told Knight to apologize,' she thought.

Rose pushed past Scorpius and began to limp slowly down the hallway. Her whole body ached, but she could manage. Thankfully, she hadn't gotten very far from the great hall, which was just down the flight of stairs at the end of the hallway. The infirmary wouldn't be far from there.

"Rose, wait!" she heard Scorpius yell when she reached the staircase. She didn't stop.

She could hear his footsteps dashing down the hall and knew that he would catch up with her soon. She sighed with annoyance.

"Rose, please let me help you," Scorpius pleaded when he reached her, he grabbed her shoulders, forcing her to stop. Rose winced.

Now that it was daylight and they were in public, it was easier for Rose to ignore the tingling sensation she felt when he touched her.

"Scorpius, I realize that this is all part of your plan to tame me. News flash: it isn't working. Now let me go."

The concern on Scorpius' face morphed into hurt, and, to Rose's surprise, he did just that.

"I'm sorry, Rose," he apologized in practically a whisper. "I know you don't believe me, but I don't like to see you hurt like this." Scorpius' cold grey eyes met hers, and for a flicker of time, Rose believed him.

Se shook the feeling from herself and began the arduous task of climbing down the stairs. "Physically maybe, but when it comes to the other departments, you have a grand old time trying to inflict pain."

Scorpius quickly took two steps down, and stood in front of her, forcing Rose to stop once more. Why couldn't he just leave her alone?

She didn't want to deal with this right now. All she wanted to do was get cleaned up and lie down. But although she was physically weak, she knew she had the upper hand mentally. She had an idea.

"Fine, Scorpius," she pretended to give in. "I can barely walk, I admit I need your help."

Scorpius smiled as Rose put her arm around him, leaning on him for support. The smile seemed so genuine and she almost felt bad for what she was about to do. Almost.

When they reached the first landing, they turned towards the last flight of stairs that led right to the big oak doors that were opened to reveal the great hall. This part of the school was fairly busy. There would be quite a number of witnesses.

They began to make their way down, when Rose let go of Scorpius and threw herself down the stairs.

"Ah!" she screamed as she hit the ground. It wasn't entirely fake though since, even though she made sure to fall on her butt, so as to minimize the damage, she still felt a wave of shock through her body. She rolled down a few more steps to make it seem more believable, before she brought herself to a stop near the bottom of the stairs. She was careful not to damage herself anymore, thanking her mother for the stag combat classes she had let her take the summer of her third year. Despite this, her already broken body screamed out against the this new physical collision.

"Owwwwwww!" she moaned in pain. Again, she didn't really have to fake it much, but the discomfort was worth the consequences Scorpius would have to undergo.

"Someone get the nurse!" a young female voice shouted.

"What happened?" Rose heard another female student ask.

"That bloke pushed her down the stairs!" someone else cried.

Rose shot a quick glance up the stairs to see Scorpius. His grey eyes were wide. He looked like a deer in the headlights as he stood there, before he dashed back up the stairs.

'A scorpion is no longer dangerous once his stinger has been removed' she thought to herself with a smile.

The playing field was even once more.

A crowd had gathered around Rose. "Are you alright?" several students seem to ask at once.

"What a jerk," someone commented.

It wasn't long before Madame Blackwater was on the scene.

"Move aside, move aside!" she commanded. Rose turned onto her back to see the young nurse now at her side. The nurse helped her sit up. "Goodness me, what happened?" she cried.

"I-I fell" Rose stammered.

"Bah!" a student from the crowd cried. "It was that Malfoy bloke, he pushed her!"

"Is this true?" Madame Blackwater asked Rose.

"Yeah!" came another voice. "I saw it. We all saw it."

A murmur of agreement washed over the crowd.

Madame Blackwater sighed and waved her wand. In a flash, a wheelchair appeared next to her. "Can you manage to stand up?" she asked Rose in a quiet voice.

"I think so," Rose replied, and with the help of Madame Blackwater's steady hand, she was able to get up and into the wheel chair.


	3. Aftermath

A few hours later Rose was sitting up in a bed at the infirmary. She was still a bit achy, but her knees no longer stung, thanks to the phoenix tear ointment Madame Blackwater had applied earlier. The nurse had informed Rose that the Painless Potion she had given her would kick in soon, and that Rose could leave by dinner time.

"You have a visitor," Madame Blackwater's voice rang from the front door. Moments later Nemo was sitting at her bedside.

"I could really kick Scorpius Malfoy in the balls," Nemo announced.

"Nice to see you to," Rose laughed. "I'm doing fine, thanks for asking."

"Sorry," Nemo said, blushing. "He just really pisses me off."

"Look, Nemo, if I tell you something, do you promise to keep your lips sealed?" Rose whispered, leaning close to him.

"What are you going on about?" Nemo whispered back, confused.

"Just swear you'll keep quiet?"

"Well, as long as you haven't killed anyone, I guess I can. You haven't killed anyone right?"

"No!" she said, lightly hitting him on the shoulder. "Come on, be serious for once."

"Alright, fine, I swear on my Chocolate Frog Card Collection," he promised.

Rose shot him a dirty look.

"What? In a couple of years, they'll be worth A LOT of money."

Rose just sighed, and proceeded to tell him what actually happened today, and also about what had happened the night before.

"So, let me get this straight. He insulted you and then felt you up?" Nemo asked Rose after she had retold the story of her encounter with Scorpius.

"He didn't feel me up," Rose replied, somewhat annoyed. She was used to Nemo's sometimes vulgar interpretation of events. She had known him since her second year at Hogwarts. If it wasn't for their strong sibling-like relationship, she would have never been able to put up with his constant teenaged-boy view of the world.

"I'm sure he wanted to," Nemo said matter of fact.

"Well, he shall forever be disappointed then, because that will only happen over my dead body-"

"Hm, I'm sure Malfoy would enjoy that," he interrupted jokingly, brushing his long chestnut bangs out of his hazel eyes.

"Nemo!" Rose exclaimed, hitting him on the shoulder once more.

"What? He's a Malfoy," he replied as if that explained everything.

"So?" Rose asked. She understood that after the Battle of Hogwarts the Malfoy family, or any pureblood families with or without ties to Voldemort, weren't seen in the best light, but what did that have to do with fetishes?

"They're probably into all that weird rubbish. I wouldn't be surprised if he was a necrophiliac," he said this time more seriously.

Images of Malfoy violating her cold lifeless corpse invaded Rose's thoughts. She chided herself for not being more repulsed. All the same, she couldn't let Nemo know that. "Ugh! Thank you for that pleasant theory. Congratulations you have forever placed disturbing images in my head."

"So, if he didn't feel you up, what did the slime ball do?" Nemo asked.

"He put his hands around my waist. That was it," Rose confirmed. "But I pulled away from him," she added. She felt a tad bit guilty for lying, but Nemo would never understand her inability to control herself around Scorpius. Her self control was one of the strong points that everyone knew she had.

"That isn't that bad. You were making it seem like he had joined Lewis and Clark on an expedition of unseen territory" Nemo laughed.

"Trust me, it was horrifying," Rose said firmly.

"Not as bad as you're making it out to be, and defiantly not at as bad as what he could've done," Nemo began. "You should consider yourself lucky. Being alone in a classroom with Malfoy at night, I'm surprised you came back a virgin."

"Excuse me! You really think I would have let him do that?" Rose asked appalled even though thinking back to last night she knew she hadn't been so positive at the time.

"No, but you forgot your wand, while he had his." Nemo gave her a look that said 'That was a very stupid move.' Rose regretted telling him that part.

"Ok, so I should have my wand on me at all times. It's a problem I need to work on."

"You can say that again. Especially if you're planning anymore midnight meetings with the president of perves."

"Don't worry, I'm not." Rose replied quickly. More to convince herself than her friend. Sure, the last time she saw him she was able to think more clearly, but that was in public. Now she had a small yet powerful tug of curiosity that was dying to know what would happen if they met again alone. She was starting to convince herself that if she were to encounter him again in private, she could build up a tolerance to the drug like effect he seemed to have on her when no one was around.

Just then, Madame Blackwater emerged from her office and approached the two of them.

"Let me just take one last look, and then you'll be free to go," she smiled. With that, Madame Blackwater removed the sheets that covered Roses legs to reveal that the scrapes had disappeared. She motioned for Rose to stand up.

When Rose got out of bed she felt like her old self once more. No more aches and pains. Madame Blackwater had her walk around a bit, and when she was convinced Rose had fully healed, she dismissed both of them.

"Don't worry about Mr. Malfoy," she assured as she walked Rose and Nemo to the door. "Professor McGonagal spoke with him."

Although, Rose knew that the young nurse had hoped to make her feel better, it only made her feel worse. She almost regretted what she had done on the stairs. Sure she wanted to get back at Scorpius for the way he taunted her the night before, but this might have been too extreme.

It was dinner time when Nemo and Rose reached the great hall. There was no feast that night, so students sat at the tables with little regard to house affiliation.

Rose spotted Albus and Hugo hunched over a game of wizard's chess, shoving forkfuls of food into their mouths between turns.

"Why, here are the usual suspects," she smiled taking a seat next to Albus.

"Knight to E5," Albus stated, his mouth full of food. The knight riding the white horse took his sword and rammed it into the black king. "Check mate."

Hugo huffed in annoyance. "Don't you think you could let me win once in awhile?"

"But, then you wouldn't learn anything," Albus smiled slyly. He patted his younger cousin on the head. Hugo responded by sticking his tongue out.

"Very attractive," Rose laughed.

"Rosie, i heard about what happened with Malfoy. I can't believe he pushed you down the stairs!" Hugo exclaimed now that his attention was turned to his sister.

"You know, I really hate that kid," Albus commented. "Are you alright?"

"Yes, I'm fine. Madame Blackwater did a fine job of fixing me back up. So what have I missed?" Rose replied.

"Well, McGonagal contacted Mum and Dad. Dad sent you a letter." Hugo answered, handing an opened letter to Rose. "He's absolutely furious."

"You know Hugo, it's common practice to _not_ read letters that aren't addressed to you." She shot him an annoyed glance.

Hugo responded by shrugging his shoulders. "What's yours is mine, sis"

Rose took two letters out of the envelope. One had her father's quick chicken scratch handwriting, while the other consisted of her mother's refined cursive.

Glancing over her father's letter, she confirmed what she thought it had said. He ranted about the "no good Malfoy family" and how Scorpius should be expelled and so on. He even stated that "if it weren't for McGonagal, I'd transfer you to that French school your aunt went to." Rose shuddered at the thought.

The letter from her mother was much calmer. She asked Rose to write back to assure her mother that she was feeling better. She also informed her daughter to keep a look out for herself, and "don't be afraid to stupefy him the next time he gets too close. Lots of Love, Mum"

Rose sighed. What had she done? Her father and Scorpius' worked at the same office in the ministry. Knowing her father's temper this could get blown way out of proportion. The last thing she needed was their parents to get involved. She shared an "oh, shit" look with Nemo.

"I got a letter too," Albus informed when Rose looked up from her mother's letter. "Uncle Ron told me to cast a slug-eating curse on him when I got the chance."

Rose hit her forehead with the palm of her hand. "Fantastic."

"I don't understand why he sent it to me though, I feel out of all of us, Hugo would be the most excited for an excuse to curse someone," Albus finished.

By this time, a plate of food has magically appeared in front of Rose and Nemo. She ate quickly and then invented an excuse to leave. She didn't like not telling her family the truth, but she didn't want them to know she had lied to practically the whole school.

When she reached the bottom of the Hufflepuff-Slytherian staircase, she was surprised when her eyes met grey ones flecked with black. Rose glanced around quickly to see if anyone else was there. No one.

"Damn," Rose whispered under her breath.

"Ah, happy to see me Rosie?" Scorpius said with a laugh. He pushed himself up from the wall he had been causally leaning against and strode towards her.

"As always, it's a pleasure," Rose replied with a sneer. She knew Scorpius should be infuriated with her, so why was he acting so cooly?

"Well I'm glad to hear it," Scorpius smiled. He stopped only inches away from her before he whispered. "Did you miss me?"

Scorpius' proximity frightened her. She could feel the mixture of terror and excitement from the night before flood back. Rose reached for her wand, only to realize she had left it on the nightstand in the infirmary.

'Not again!' she winced. She was trying desperately to hold her ground without flinching.

Scorpius must have picked up on the cause of her distress, for in one swift movement he grabbed Rose's arm and pulled her down the Slytherian side of the hallway.

"Let go of me!" she called, hoping that someone would hear her. Scorpius stopped, and for a moment, Rose thought she was free. Instead of letting her go though, he used his other hand to tap three times on the wall in front of him, revealing a secret passageway. He pulled her inside, and the wall closed behind them.


	4. Control

It was pitch black until Scorpius murmured "Lumos" and the tip of his wand illuminated the passageway.

"That was a very convincing stunt you pulled earlier today," he smirked. "I'm not going to lie, I was impressed."

Once Rose's eyes adjusted to the light, she realized just how narrow the passage was. Width wise, there was barely enough room for the two of them, so they were forced to stand chest to chest. Rose, who was normally very proud of her larger bust size and liked to wear shirts that revealed a still fairly conservative amount of cleavage, now regretted not wearing a higher neck line. Although she was tall for a woman, Scorpius towered over her a good 2 or 3 inches, providing him with a perfect view.

As if Scorpius could read her mind, his eyes shifted downward and a big grin came across his face. Rose blushed. Although she couldn't help but feel flattered, she was not a fan of his blatant staring. She reached up and slapped him.

"Ow!" Scorpius' cry echoed through the passageway. He brought his hand up to his inflamed cheek.

Even in the dim blue light, Rose could see she left a handprint on the right side of his face. She couldn't help but smile at her strength. The fear that had gripped her earlier began to fade away.

Scorpius let out a deep breath. "Alright, I can't say I didn't deserve that one."

Although Rose should have been terrified that Scorpius had dragged her away from the rest of the world, she felt braver than the night before. Not only was the passageway too small for Scorpius to try to take advantage of her, but his wand was also preoccupied with lighting the way.

"So, was the opportunity to stare at my boobs the only reason for why you've stolen me away into a cramped corridor? " she asked as she shifted her long wavy red hair so that it covered her chest. She couldn't help but smile at the look of disappointment that flashed across Scorpius' face.

"Despite appearances, no," Scorpius stated firmly. "Believe it or not, I actually wanted to talk to you."

"Alright, then talk," Rose commanded. Although the lack of space between them excited her just as much it had the night before, she knew that Scorpius no longer had the upper hand. The power to pleasure or destroy was distributed evenly between them.

"So McGonagal took away my Hogsmead privileges for the rest of the year, my father is absolutely furious, and I received a threatening letter from a Mr. Ronald Weasley. I hope you're happy," Scorpius chimed.

Rose could tell he wasn't angry with her. If anything, the damage she caused seemed to excite him.

"Well, it's just my way of keeping unruly men in their place," Rose sneered, stealing the line Scorpius had used against her less than twenty-four hours ago.

"Touche," Scorpius smirked.

He then moved his hand from his cheek over to caress Rose's. Her skin tingled at his touch, but she was also aware of how easily the caress could turn into a slap. She in turn put her hand on his neck. If he tried any funny business, she would just tighten her grip.

Scorpius glanced at her hand, then nodded in understanding. He then met her eyes, and for a moment, all they did was stare at each other. Waiting patiently for the next move, as if in their own game of wizards chess.

"It seems we have reached a stalemate," Scorpius announced in a low voice.

"It seems we have," Rose agreed. "Still want to put me in my place?" she whispered.

"Only if you still want to put me in mine," Scorpius challenged.

Rose watched as his hand left her cheek and grabbed the hand she had positioned on his neck. He lifted it up to his lips and kissed it. He lingered there for a moment, before he placed her hand on his shoulder. Rose responded by using her free hand to place his on her hip. They stood there staring into each others eyes as the electricity between them increased ten-fold.

It was then that Rose felt something more 'physical' emerge between them, thanks to Scorpius. She bit her bottom lip in satisfaction, because she knew, at least for now, she had the upper hand.

"Excited aren't we?" she teased, leaving his gaze only for a moment to cast her eyes downwards, before returning to his eyes.

It was Scorpius' turn to blush. All the same, he bent his head down closer to her lips, but before he could kiss her, she placed her free hand between them.

"I apologize Scorpius, but I'm just not in the mood tonight. Maybe some other time." With that she removed his hand from her hip, and folded her arms across her chest.

For a moment Rose could not believe the words coming out of her mouth. It seemed as if her body and brain were disconnected once more, but this time, it wasn't all bad.

Scorpius' jaw dropped, "Well, I...um" he stammered.

"If you would be so kind as to let me out, I am dreadfully tired," Rose smiled. 'Score one for Rose Weasley!' she thought.

"Seriously?" Scorpius looked at Rose in amazement.

"What can I say? After being tripped and then falling down the stairs, I am utterly exhausted."

Scorpius sighed. Rose could feel that his 'physical connection' had deflated and assumed that his mental one had too. At least for tonight.

Without looking, he tapped his wand on the stone wall five times, and there was an opening to the hallway once more.

"Thank you very much," Rose chimed, as they both stepped out of the passageway. "We should do this again, soon," she smiled. The passageway disappeared once more. Rose made sure to take note of it's location for future reference.

"Yeah," Scorpius let out a deep breath. He didn't even try to hide his disappointment. "Nox," he sighed, and the light at the tip of his wand went out.

There was one last thing Rose needed to do, before she had fully gotten back at Scorpius: leave him begging for more.

She put her arms around his shoulders, and pulled herself up his ear. "Don't worry big shot, you're time will come," she whispered seductively in his ear. She lingered there a moment before she pulled back to face him and gave him a peck on the lips.

She stood there just long enough to see his eyes perk up, and then with a chuckle, she ran back to the Hufflepuff dorms, leaving Scorpius dumbfounded.

When she walked into the Hufflepuff common room, it was completely empty save for one 6th year boy lounging in an arm chair, a comic book in his hands.

"Where the hell have you been?" Nemo asked as soon as he heard Rose enter. "Curfew was a half hour ago."

'Was I really gone that long?' Rose thought to herself. Then she posed a question for Nemo. "How did you know I wasn't in my room?"

"Chelsea came down about an hour ago asking if I knew where you were. She wants to borrow you're hair tamer...or whatever it is," Nemo answered.

Chelsea was one of her roommates, and Nemo's girlfriend. Rose didn't know her very well, but she had an odd habit of wanting to borrow things from Rose.

"Again? She really needs to go out and buy her ow-."

"Don't try to change the subject," Nemo interrupted. "Were you with Malfoy again?" He was standing now.

"Maybe..." Rose said after a moment, knowing that her friend would chid her for her behavior.

"Rose!" he exclaimed in frustration.

Rose took a seat on the nearby couch, and motioned for Nemo to do the same. He did.

"You know when I said that when Malfoy wrapped his hands around my waist last night I pulled away?"

Nemo nodded.

"Well I did, just not immediately...not for awhile actually."

"What on Earth are you talking about?"

"I'm saying that I kinda maybe sorta...like him a lot." She sped through the end of the sentence. She had enough trouble admitting it to herself let alone anyone else.

Nemo looked at her in disbelief. "You mean to say that you are in love with the same boy whom you claimed threw you down the stairs?"

"Well, I wouldn't call it love," Rose admitted.

"What exactly is it then?" Nemo asked. One of his eyebrow raised in confusion.

"It's hard to explain," Rose answered after a period of consideration. She wasn't quite sure what to make of it either.

"Try me," Nemo insisted.

"It's more like a thrilling struggle for power." Rose couldn't believe how dumb that sounded.

"And this struggle is sexual?" Nemo asked, bewildered by the whole conversation.

"Well, nothing has happened yet, but the tension is not just emotional," she admitted.

"Oh, boy" Nemo sighed. "I think you've got me lost on this one Rose. What are you going to tell your parents when they find out?"

"My parents aren't going to find out," Rose stated. "No one in my family is going to find out," she said, giving Nemo a hard look.

"Ok, I won't say anything, but don't you think Albus and the others are going to find it suspicious when their cousin starts sneaking off with the guy who pushed her down the stairs. The same guy whose father your family isn't very fond of to begin with," Nemo warned.

"They aren't going to see me sneaking around. Especially since they live 8 floors above me to begin with."

"Well you know that this means the Room of Requirement is basically off limits, right?" Nemo said.

Rose remembered that when she asked Nemo how he and Chelsea were able to get any alone time together, he had told her that they would often sneak off to the Room of Requirement in the middle of the night. Her mind was immediately flooded with images of what she and Scorpius could get away with up there.

"Well that's just a risk I'll just have to be willing to take," she smiled.

"Oh, boy," Nemo sighed once more.


	5. Cat and Mouse

On Sunday, Rose spent her whole day in the library, only leaving twice to grab a quick bite to eat from the great hall. She had never been this swamped with work, and regretted not starting it the day before.

'Malfoy might just be the death of my good grades' Rose thought as she attempted to focus on the veritaserum chapter she needed to read before she could begin the 8 inches of parchment she was assigned on the ethical dilemma surrounding truth serum.

She had just finished reading when she felt two cool fingers glide across her back. She shivered and her back arched into their brief touch. She knew it was him, but she refused to give him the satisfaction of turning around.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him walk to the table on her left and sit. 'Just ignore him,' she commanded herself. 'Just this one essay and you're finished.'

She began compiling an organizer when she heard a book slam on Scorpius' desk. Although it was starting to get late, the library was considerably filled with students who left their work to the last minute. Everyone in the library turned toward the noise except Rose.

'He better not start any funny business,' Rose hoped. She did not want to draw any more attention to the two of them, positive or negative. 'He wouldn't. He has his reputation to uphold,' she tried to convince herself, but would that be enough?

The students in the library returned to their work. Rose managed to get halfway through her essay before a paper crane slid over her books. She looked at it, and then stole a glance over at Scorpius. He seemed to be deeply entranced in his studying. 'Yeah, right," Rose thought.

She discretely opened the paper crane, being careful not to make a sound, and placed the now open parchment on top of her essay.

'Am I distracting you, Rosie?' was scrawled in his long elegant script. She could just imagine the smirk on his face as he wrote it.

Rose ripped up the parchment as quietly as possible, and with a flick of her wand, sent the pieces zooming back to Scorpius' desk.

As much as their game of cat-and-mouse thrilled her, she refused to let it get in the way of her schoolwork.

She was one paragraph away from finishing, when another paper crane landed on her desk. She rolled her eyes.

Opening it up, Rose immediately regretted picking the letter up in the first place. She had no idea Scorpius was such a talented artist, and wished that this hadn't been the way she discovered his, very detail oriented, skill. In ink he had drawn the two of them being...intimate, to say the very least. The worst part was that the he had enchanted the picture to move.

Rose blushed and quickly stuffed the paper into her backpack. 'The nerve of him!' she mouthed even though the rush of adrenaline that the picture awoke in her was far from unpleasant.

She glanced over at Scorpius, still bent over his books, except now he couldn't hide the coy smile on his face.

'Screw the essay,' she thought. She didn't have much left to finish anyways; she could always get it done during lunch tomorrow.

She grabbed a smaller piece of parchment out of her backpack and scrawled a quick note. 'Looks like a good idea. Meet me in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom on the second floor in 10 minutes. She won't be the only one moaning tonight.' She read over her letter once more, and, satisfied, flicked her wand. The letter folded into a heart and zoomed over to Scorpius' desk.

She began to pack up her things quickly, still making sure to keep Scorpius in the corner of her eye. As she watched Scorpius' face light up after reading her note, it was her turn to have a coy smile. She could see him watching her and once she had her bag all packed, she made sure to unbutton her blouse just enough to reveal a bit of cleavage. She could see Scorpius practically drooling at his table, while the other students remained lost in their work, unaware of the events that had passed.

When she exited the library, instead of heading up to the second floor, Rose headed back down the stairs to the Hufflepuff house. There was still an hour before curfew, but the events of the weekend had finally caught up to her. No amount of dopamine caused by Scorpius could hold back her exhaustion. As soon as she got back to her room, she took a nice warm shower before getting into her nightgown and crawling into bed.

She smiled as she imagined Scorpius running up to the second floor girls bathroom in heated anticipation, only to discover that Rose wasn't there, and would not be coming. 'That'll teach him to interfere with my studies,' she thought before drifting off to sleep.

During the days that followed it seemed that Scorpius had received the message loud and clear. Whenever she was in the library, he either wasn't there, or left as soon as she arrived. Since she had all her classes with Nemo, she was barely ever alone. Even so, Scorpius managed to find moments to lock onto Rose's eyes when they passed each other in the hallway. Both seemed to be daring the other to step out of the line they were toeing.

In the DADA class they shared together on Tuesday and Thursday, the sat on opposite ends of the room. Although they were too far away to pass notes discretely, Rose could still feel his eyes on her from the back of the room. Since she sat in the very front row, she had an excuse not to meet his gaze, but whenever their teacher paced to the back of the room, electric blue and foggy grey irises met in a storm of emotion.

On Friday, as Hufflepuffs and Slytherians streamed out of 6th year transfiguration Scorpius not-so-accidentally bumped into Rose with enough force to send the book and papers she was carrying flying across the corridor.

"Watch where you're going Malfoy!" she snapped after him as she bent down to collect her papers. He turned around and she didn't have to look up to know he was attempting to sneak a peak down her shirt. She had been cycling through the few shirts she had with high necklines ever since their last encounter, and knew he would be disappointed yet again.

"It's not my fault you're such a klutz, Weasel," he retorted. "Maybe if you were a bit more lady-like you wouldn't have this problem."

Rose glared up at him and began to wonder if the only reason she wanted to get in bed with him was so that she could suffocate him with a pillow.

Scorpius winked at her, before strutting down the hallway to his next class like a male rooster.

"Quite the romantic, isn't he?" Nemo teased as he bent down to help Rose collect her things and stuff them in her backpack.

"Shut up," she glared at him, sticking her tongue out.

At dinner that night, Rose abandoned her usual seat next to Nemo at the Hufflepuff table, to squeeze in with her cousins and brother at Grffyindor. "So what are we doing on our last Hogsmeade day before holiday?" she asked as she slipped in between Lily and Albus.

"Are we really leaving for break next Saturday?" Lily asked, amazed. "I feel like we only just arrived a couple of weeks ago."

"You're right, this year does seem to be going by quickly," Hugo agreed.

"That's fourth year for you," Albus responded. "It goes by fast. Almost as fast as first year."

"So, what are we doing tomorrow?" Rose pressed, annoyed that they had ignored her question.

"I 'unno," Hugo replied, his mouth stuffed with mashed potatoes. " 'own 'all fyt?"

"Hugo, no one can understand you with you're mouth full," Lilly scolded.

Hugo gulped down his food before trying again. "Snowball fight?"

"Of course," Albus agreed.

"Rose, there is this new boutique that opened near Honeydukes that all my friends have been talking about. We have to go," Lily insisted.

Rose smiled at her cousins' obsession with fashion. She had never been much of a girly-girl herself, but Lily reminded her of how fun shopping could actually be. "Sounds, good"

"Excuse me," came an unfamiliar voice from behind Rose. They all turned to see who it was.

A short girl with medium length black hair neatly groomed into a side braid stood there. She was wearing Slytherian robes.

"Are you Rose Weasley?" she asked Rose.

"That would be me," Rose answered.

"Hi, my names Olive. I've been working on an independent project for Herbology, I'm a 3rd year, and Professor Longbottom said you might be able to help me."

This wasn't the first time her parents' friend directed students to Rose for peer tutoring. He knew she was a good student and also claimed that she would "become a fine professor one day!"

"If it isn't too large, I might be able to help," Rose replied.

"It will only take a moment. You can help me right now, if you don't mind. I have my stuff set up in the library," Olive stated politely.

"Sure," Rose agreed. "I'll met you guys here at 11:00 tomorrow?" Rose asked her family before leaving.

Albus, Lily and Hugo murmured in agreement and Rose followed Olive out of the great hall.

They were halfway to the library, when she saw Scorpius leaning against a window in the hallway.

When they began walking towards him, Rose knew she had fallen into his trap.

"Why thank you, Olive," he smiled and handed her 3 galleons. Olive pocketed the money, and skipped into the library. "She's hoping to become an actress," Scorpius said, smiling after her.

"Scorpius!" she whispered through clenched teeth. "What the bloody hell are you doing, having me meet you in public?"

"You are insufferable Weasley," he said louder than necessary. When a group of Slytherians passed by from Rose's direction, she understood why.

"Well, you're no walk in the park either," she hissed only loud enough for him to hear.

When the Slytherians were out of sight, Malfoy walked over to the tapestry on the other side of the hall and murmured something under his breath. A secret passage opened and he beckoned Rose inside.

Minutes later they emerged from the passageway into the prefects' bathroom.


	6. All Wet

_**A/N: Dear Avid Readers, After all the "UPDATE NOWAH" messages I've received from you, I give you Part 6 of my tale. I also ask for your forgiveness on the late updating. Unfortunately, I am merely a non-magical human which can only mean two things: 1) I have a life (which is currently very busy packing seeing as I leave for college in four days) and 2) I suffer from the occasional bouts of extreme writers block. Despite that, I hope you enjoy!**_

"The prefects bathroom? Seriously?" Rose asked in disbelief. She didn't expect Scorpius to be so forward.

"Before you say anything else, I didn't bring you here to deflower you, if that's what you're thinking," Scorpius reassured her. "Although, if that ends up happening, there's no better place for it," he winked.

Rose narrowed her eyes at him. "You're vulgar."

"Oh, come now, Rosie. A bloke can joke, can't he?" Scorpius smiled. He took her right hand to kiss it, but she snatched it away before his lips could touch her skin.

"If you're just going to treat me like a piece of meat, I'm leaving," Rose announced heading for what she assumed to be the door out. It ended up being a storage closet. Rose could hear Scorpius attempting to suppress a chuckle. She slammed the door and turned back to face him.

Scorpius walked up to her and put his hand on her shoulder. He looked directly into her eyes as he said. "Rosie, please stay. To be fair, you haven't been very civil with me either. I'm just joking around, I promise," he pleaded.

Rose tried to avoid his eyes as she bit her lip in frustration. She was beginning to believe the sincerity in his voice. She sighed. "What exactly were you planning on doing in here anyways?"

Scorpius smiled and clapped his hands together. The large marble room lit up with the flames of multiple yellow and silver candles encircling the room. Rose could see that the swimming pool sized bath tub was filled with warm water.

"What is all this?" Rose asked in amazement.

"One of the Slytherian prefects owed me a favor, so I asked her to set all this up for us." Scorpius smiled.

Rose suddenly panicked. "You didn't tell her I was coming, did you?" Rose questioned.

"No, I didn't mention your name. All I told her was that there was this girl who I'm trying to win over, and I needed a sure fire way to get into her pants -which isn't entirely untrue- and so she asked me what you liked to do. I know you go swimming in the lake as soon as it gets warmer, but since the lake is ice cold this time of year I figured this would suffice " Scorpius explained point blank.

"I don't know whether I should kiss you or slap you," Rose replied confused by Scorpius' almost-niceness

"How about both?" Scorpius suggested with a smirk.

Rose decided the best course of action was to punch him in the arm.

"Ow," Scorpius cried, rubbing his arm. "Abusing me must really get you off."

"Well, it doesn't look like either of us have our bathing suits, and I can assure you I am not skinny dipping with you," Rose stated.

"I figured we just swim in our underwear," Scorpius shrugged his shoulders. When Rose narrowed her eyes at him he added, "What? It's not like they don't cover anything less than bathing suits."

He had a point, even though Rose preferred wearing one pieces when swimming. "Fine," Rose sighed, "but you can't look until I'm in the water."

"Not even a quick peek?" Scorpius teased.

Rose gave him a threatening look.

"I was only joking!" He covered his eyes. "Look, I can't see anything."

Although her better judgement warned her against it, Rose decided to let loose for once. She kicked off her Mary Jane's, and quickly pulled off her black knee high socks. Next to go was her robe, which she let fall in a rumpled heap before placing her wand on top. She then quickly unbuttoned her blouse to reveal her gray bra embroidered with black roses that was trimmed with black lace. She wriggled out of her skirt, thankful that the matching underwear she wore was bikini cut, and not a thong. She began taking off her unbuttoned shirt when she looked back up. To her horror she discovered Scorpius' eyes were no longer covered.

"Scorpius!" she cried, throwing her shirt at his face. He caught it mid air and brought it up to his face, breathing in it's scent.

Rose took Scorpius' apparent obsession with her perfume as a chance to run over to the bath's edge, and jump in.

The moment the warm water engulfed her body, Rose felt at ease. She stayed under a while, enjoying the soothing sensation of the water on her skin, before breaking the surface. The scent of lavender filled her nostrils, and she felt at ease.

She turned to face Scorpius, who was still fully clothed standing next to the pile of her discarded garments.

"You promised you wouldn't look," Rose stated, sounding more annoyed then she actually was.

"I'm sorry, Rosie, but when you have a body like that, can you blame me?" Scorpius replied.

Rose sighed with frustration, although she couldn't help but feel flattered. "Alright then, you're turn," she commanded, treading water; even with her height the bath was deep in the middle. "And, I get to watch. Fair's fair."

"Want to watch me strip do you?" he teased. "Very well then."

In a flash Scorpius threw off his robes, kicked off his shoes and socks, and removed his black pants to reveal green silk boxers.

'Should have guessed,' Rose thought to herself. 'He is a Slytherian.'

After Scorpius quickly unbuttoned and removed his white shirt, Rose took in his almost naked appearance. He was skinny, but still well built. Although he didn't have the "wash board" abs that Rose overheard many girls gossip about, he was still fit. His pale skin and hair appeared to glow a warm yellow hue, soaking in the candle light around him.

The tingling sensation that Rose had been repressing all week came back with a vengeance. Maybe this whole swimming practically naked thing wasn't such a good idea after all.

Scorpius cannonballed into the water, and Rose flinched as a small wave washed over her. Scorpius came up for air, combing his long bangs back out of his eyes.

"See, this isn't so bad is it, Rosie?" he asked swimming up to her.

Rose instinctively backed away from him, only to be pinned up against the wall of the bathtub. She sat down on the small underwater ledge that wrapped itself around the tub.

Seeing Rose's obvious distress Scorpius reassured, "Rosie, relax. I'm not going to pull anything on you, I swear. I just want to have some fun with you tonight is all."

"You also promised you wouldn't look at me undressing," Rose countered, shooting him a dirty look.

Scorpius sat next to her on the ledge. "I admit, that was rude of me, but I would be willing to make the Unbreakable Vow." He looked at her with sincerity in his almond shaped gray eyes.

Rose decided to humor him. "Fine, but if you try any funny business I'm leaving."

Scorpius nodded quickly. A brief moment passed before he added, "Now, I don't think I've gotten you wet enough." With that he splashed Rose right in the face before swimming away.

"Scorpius!" Rose cried as she wiped the water out of her eyes.

"Try and catch me, Weasley!" he yelled back, and Rose pushed off from the tub wall after him.

Two hours later the two sat back on the ledge exhausted.

"Well, that was fun," Rose panted, breathless.

"I can't deny it, you gave me a run for my money, Weasel," he teased.

She playfully hit him on the shoulder, before pushing herself up out of the tub.

For a moment Rose forgot that she was only in her bra and knickers.

"Feeling a bit more confident," Scorpius asked with a mischievous smile.

Realizing that he was referring to her disrobed appearance she instinctively covered her stomach with her arms. Although she had a fairly nice frame, Rose always found the areas of her body normally hidden by clothing to be a bit chubby. Her cheeks turned a bright red.

"Why are you covering yourself up like that?" Scorpius asked. His voice was genuine. "You're absolutely beautiful."

Rose, who had been expecting some snide or sexist comment about her body, was taken utterly off guard. "Thank you," was all she could manage to say.

Still in a dazed state, she took a step forward, only to slip on the wet marble floor. She came crashing down to the tile on her back.

"Rose!" Scorpius called, hoping out of the bath and rushing to her side. He knelt down beside her, and helped her sit up. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I just got the wind knocked out of me is all," Rose said taking a deep breath.

Scorpius looked deeply into Rose's wide electric blue irises. "Merlin, you have beautiful eyes," he whispered.

Scorpius leaned his head slightly to the side, closed his eyes, and moved slowly towards Rose's lips. In that moment, Rose couldn't find it in herself to deny what Scorpius had wanted, what they had both wanted, since the night in the old DADA room a week ago...maybe even longer. Rose closed her eyes as well and allowed her slender pink lips to collide with his.

Moments later, they parted.

"I don't understand you much, Rose Weasley," Scorpius whispered, his lips still only centimeters from hers.

"Well, you're not exactly the easiest read in the library either, Scorpius Malfoy" Rose admitted.

Their lips locked once more, only this time it was more heated. Rose could feel Scorpius gently, but firmly push her to the ground once more. She submitted only for a minute, before pushing her way back up, forcing Scorpius to the floor, never breaking their kiss.

To her surprise, Scorpius let Rose swing her left leg over him, so that she was directly on top of him. She could feel his lips part, his tongue hitting up against her lips, begging for entrance. She parted her lips and the kiss deepened, the two battling with their tongues.

When they had tired themselves out, Rose moved her leg back over to the right side, and lay next to him, making sure not to touch any part of his body.

'What have I done?' she practically screamed inside her head. 'There's no going back now.' Rose knew that kissing Scorpius Malfoy was wrong. Her friends disliked him, her family disliked him, Merlin, her father _hated_ him, and she was supposed to hate him to. Despite all this, a smile crept across her face. For once she felt exhilarated.

"Well, I wasn't quite expecting that to happen," Scorpius interrupted her thoughts, turning towards her, a smile across his face.

"You and me both," Rose agreed.

"What shall we do now then?" Scorpius asked, "Up for another round?" he winked.

"It's getting late, and I have to wake up early for Hogsmeade tomorrow. I think we should call it a night," Rose said, pushing herself up off the floor. She looked over at the clock above the storage closet door. "It's almost midnight!" she cried, getting up. She picked up her wand, remembering a drying off spell her mother had taught her. In an instant both her and Scorpius' underwear and hair were warm dry once more. "We're practically on the other side of the castle from Hufflepuff," she stated, concern in her voice. She began throwing her clothes back on.

"Calm down," Scorpius said, pulling his pants back on. "If we take the passageway back down to the library, we're more than halfway there. We won't get caught," he said reassuringly.

When they were both dressed they headed back through the passage, and quietly entered the hallway outside the library. They rushed as quietly down the hallway, and we're just about to reach the basement stairs when an orb of light came from around the corner of an adjoining hallway.

"Crap," Rose exclaimed under her breath as the face of a Griffyndor prefect Rose knew to be David Lynch came into view.

"What are you doing out of bed?" he asked pointing his glowing wand in their faces. Rose squinted at the brightness.

'Think, Rose!' she commanded herself. "I-I fell asleep in the library. I was studying and fell asleep. I only woke up not very long ago,"

"Likely story, it's a Friday. Who in their right mind studies late on a Friday night?" the prefect countered.

This brought Rose to a dead end. To her surprise Scorpius piped in.

"It's Rose Weasley, everyone know she's mental like that," Scorpius responded, his voice dripping with bitterness.

"Well, do you expect me to believe that you fell asleep in the library as well?" Lynch asked Scorpius.

"Of course not. I'm not a freak! I woke up in the middle of the night and realized I left my wand in the library, so I went to get it. When I realized Rose was there sleeping, I figured I'd wake Weasel with a good fright," he sneered.

"Thanks for that," Rose remarked sarcastically.

"Why are you fully robed then?" Lynch persisted.

"Like I would walk around the school in my night clothes? Honestly, who do you think I am?" Scorpius answered, insulted.

The prefect took a frustrated breath. "Alright then, but if it wasn't for Rose you wouldn't be off the hook Malfoy," he sneered. "Get to bed, the both of you."

Scorpius pushed past Lynch, and Rose nodded at the prefect, before following.

It wasn't until they had descended the staircase that Rose dared to speak. "That was a close one. That boy is a good friend of Albus. If he finds out I'm sneaking around with you at night, I'm doomed.

Scorpius stopped, and turned to face her. "No one is going to find out," he reassured her. "We just have to be more careful next time."

Rose looked him unconvinced.

"Just get some sleep, ok?" Scorpius said, placing his hand on her cheek.

They kissed one last time.

"Good night," he whispered.

"Good night," she whispered back.

They parted and as Rose entered the Hufflepuff common she knew she would not be having a good night's sleep that night.


	7. Secrecy

_**A/N: So college sucks away literally all time, but I've been so stressed lately that I needed a creative outlet. I'm hoping that since this is fairly long it makes up for the fact that I haven't released anything new since the summer. **_

_**Fun fact: I researched dresses to figure out how I wanted her dress to actually look. Goldish olive green is actually Pantone C 5757. The fact that I know what that shows how pathetically art oriented my life is. **_

The next morning Rose headed quickly up the basement staircase. She was bundled up in her black peacoat, a dark green hat with tassels on each side, and a pair of fingerless black gloves. After a stressful school week she was looking forward to having a day away from Hogwarts with her family before heading home. Nemo had left earlier that morning with Chelsea, so she was on her own when she entered the Great Hall.

Her smile quickly faded from her face. Standing in front of her were not only her cousins and brother as she had expected, there were also four other figures standing there.

"Rose Weasley!" her father cried. His face was flushed and crinkled.

'Oh shit' Rose thought to herself.

"Now Ron, calm down. We're here to talk to Rose, not disown her," her mother put her arm around her father in an attempt to calm him down.

"How could you-you let him-" her father made an indiscernible motion with his hands, "him of all people!"

"Excuse me, you neglect to recognize that this is your daughter's fault, not my son's," came the voice of another man, Scorpius' father. He was dressed in all green robes, the same color green as his wife who stood beside him.

Rose's father's attention turned to Mr. Malfoy. "My daughter's fault? You're son pushed her down the stairs! She wouldn't have fallen for him if he hadn't done something-charmed her." Her father was noticeably exasperated, and looked as if he would pounce on Mr. Malfoy at any moment.

"My father's right," came Scorpius' voice behind her. He had just entered the Great Hall and headed over to his parents. "I had nothing to do with it. She threw herself down the stairs, and then threw herself at me. She's mad."

"How could you, Rosie?" it was her mother's voice now. She looked at her daughter with disappointment.

Rose tried to respond. She desperately wanted to explain what had happened. She hated seeing her father angry, her mother ashamed. But, no matter what she did, she couldn't say a word, she couldn't move.

"Rose!" She heard a voice in the distance. "Rose, get up!" it came again. "Oh for Merlin's sake, Rose you're late!"

Rose jolted awake. Her heart was beating rapidly and her head was ponding.

"Oh good, you're up," the voice sang. Rose looked up to see Chelsea leaning over her.

"Nemo told me to come wake you up. Your cousin is waiting by the stairs for you," Chelsea announced pulling the curtain on the side of the bed Rose was facing open.

"What time is it?" Rose murmured as she sat up. She held her head in her hands. She must've hit it against the headboard in the middle of the night.

"Almost 11:30," Chelsea replied cheerily.

Rose groaned. She wiped the sleep from her eyes, and slowly crept out of bed.

"You better hurry, your family members are probably starting to get impatient," Chelsea cooed.

"Thank you for the heads up, Chelsea," Rose said, trying to hide the annoyance from her voice. Chelsea's sunny disposition and perky high-pitched voice wasn't fun to deal with on a regular basis, and it was much less so with a pounding headache.

"Not a problem," she smiled, before skipping out of the room, closing the door loudly after her.

Rose cringed at the sound. All she wanted to do was crawl back into bed, but when she remembered her dream, she knew that sleeping probably wasn't the best option. She reached into her nightstand draw and pulled out her bottle of painkillers. She popped two in her mouth and then began getting ready.

"You look awful," Lily announced as soon as Rose emerged from Hufflepuff house.

"Thanks, nice to see you too," Rose replied sarcastically.

"What happened?" Lily asked.

"I had a shitty night's sleep and then hit my head getting ready this morning," Rose explained. Her headache had subsided, but hadn't fully gone away. The two cousins started heading for the Great Hall.

"You need to be more careful," Lily responded. "With Malfoy throwing you down stairs and tripping you in the hallway, you can't afford to do any more damage to yourself."

"I'll keep that in mind," Rose replied rolling her eyes.

Rose and Lily found the rest of their troop, Albus and Hugo, waiting for them outside of the Great Hall. As they passed the large oak doors of the great room Rose glanced over, half expecting to see her and Scorpius' parents there, a look of disdain on their faces.

Although she didn't see either pairs of parents, she did see Scorpius. He caught her gaze and smiled mischievously. Rose quickly looked away and headed out of the school with her family into the snowy morning.

It was mid afternoon when Rose found herself in "La Elegant Enchanteresse" the young witch's boutique that Lily had been raving about all week.

"Oh, how about this one?" Lily asked as she took a red strapless dress off the rack and held it up to Rose.

"Seriously?" Rose looked at her cousin in disbelief.

"What do you mean?" Lily questioned, examining the dress more closely.

"Where am I ever going to wear a dress like _that_?"

"Well, if you ever got a boyfriend, you could wear it on a date," Lily stated.

Rose's eyes grew wide for a moment before she quickly averted her attention to the rack of clothes in front of her. "I-I don't need a boyfriend," Rose stammered. 'Well that was a lousy cover' she scolded herself.

"Sure, you don't _need_ one, but going on dates are fun. And, let's be honest, what guy in his right mind wouldn't want to date you?" Lily walked over to Rose and began rifling through the same rack. "This one's nice too," she said as she pulled out a black long sleeved scoop-neck dress with an embroidered green vine growing halfway up the right side.

"I don't have time to date. I need to focus on my studies," Rose moved over to an adjacent rack trying to avoid eye contact with her cousin. She didn't like lying, but she couldn't tell Lily the truth, even if she was the most understanding of her family members at Hogwarts. Telling Lily was just an invitation for Albus, or worse, her parents, to learn what their Rosie was doing in secret with a Malfoy.

"That's an extremely lame excuse," Lily stated, glancing over at Rose in disbelief.

"I just...I'm just not interested in anyone right now." Rose continued to avoid eye contact with Lily. Rose just wanted her to drop the subject.

"Your aren't looking at me when you speak and your voice is shaky. You don't actually think I believe you in the slightest?" Lily followed Rose over to the new rack and pulled out yet another dress. "Not to mention the fact that you're looking at the wrong size section of this rack."

"Whoops," Rose tried to laugh it off.

Lily turned to her cousin and looked at her hard. "Fine, don't tell me who he is, but at least try these on so you have something to not wear when you don't go out with He-You-Will-Not-Name." She held out the 10 or so dresses she picked out for her cousin.

"I'll try them on, but I'm telling you, there's nobody," Rose declared as she took the hangers from her cousin.

Rose walked out of the dressing room in dress number 8. The last 7 she had tried on all had something about them that just didn't look quite right. Most of them were too short, and the one dress she tried that was long enough looked like she had draped a bed sheet over her body. She was about ready to give up on this "fun shopping day" that Lily was so hell bent on prior to today.

Lily's eyes widened.

"That bad, huh?" Rose sighed. 'There goes another one,' she thought.

"No, no, no," Lily said frantically. "That's the one. That's your dress." She beamed at her older cousin.

"You mean the one dress that looks halfway decent?" Rose asked.

"If by 'halfway decent' you mean makes you look like a sexy beast, than yes."

"'Sexy beast?'" Rose laughed.

"Seriously, look." Lily guided Rose by the shoulders to the three-sided mirror at the end of the dressing room hallway.

"Oh, wow," Rose breathed, a smile beginning to form on her face.

"I told you," Lily pointed.

The dress fit her perfectly. The upper half consisted of a goldish olive green corset bodice with black filigree embroidery snaking around it. Black lace was affixed to the top and made it's way around the perimeter of the bust, making Rose's cleavage more subtle. False medium sized silver buttons went down the front of the torso, before coming to an end at a point that faded into a just-above-the-knee length skirt. The lower half of the skirt was hitched up halfway on either side with delicate black ribbons, causing the front and back of the dress to have loose laddering folds. The cut of the fabric showed off her strong slender legs modestly. The whole effect was indeed sexy.

Rose stood there examining every detail of the dress in the mirror. She turned around to see how it looked in the back, and then faced forward again. It was a beautiful dress and she looked beautiful in it.

It wasn't long before practicality hit her. She lifted up her arms to see the tag peaking out of the dress near her left armpit. 100 Galleons.

Rose let out a sigh of disappointment.

"That expensive, huh?" Lily asked; the look on her face was beginning to mirror Roses.

"Two weeks pay from Raven's," Rose groaned, referring to the bookshop in their hometown that she worked at over the summer.

Lily scrunched her face in frustration. "You need that dress."

"Too bad I can't afford it," Rose sighed. She looked longingly in the mirror one last time before she turned to head back to her fitting room.

"That's really a shame, it looks fantastic on you."

Lily and Rose turned to find the source of the comment. It was the store worker, a 7th year Slytherian girl whom Rose saw around the castle every now and then.

"Well, maybe you can ask your mum for it for Christmas," Lily offered.

"If it's still here by then," the young Slytherian witch added. "To be honest I was eyeing that dress myself, but it didn't fit me as well as it fits you."

"Well, as nice as it is, it's not like I actually need it," Rose concluded and headed back into the dressing room.

After her misadventure at La Elegant Enchanteresse Rose parted ways from Lily, promising to meet up with her in an hour at The Three Broomsticks. Rose headed over to Tomes and Scrolls. Ever since her first Hogsmeade trip third year, Rose made it a tradition to visit the old bookshop by herself.

"Nice to see you again, Rose," the old bookkeeper, Mrs. MacGregor, greeted from behind the counter when the young witch entered.

"Hello," Rose returned in a sing-songy tone. After her many visits to the bookshop she had numerous pleasant conversations with the old widow and looked forward to seeing her every Hogsmeade visit.

"Looking for anything particular today?" she asked Rose.

"Yes, actually. I was hoping to find a Christmas present for my mother," Rose replied.

"Well, I've gotten some new books about Ancient Runes she might be interested in. As well as a very interesting new release on Hippogriff migration I think you'd quiet enjoy," she informed.

"Is that the one Newt Scamander just came out with?" Rose asked eagerly. Magical creatures fascinated her, and she was always excited to read the newest discoveries in the field.

"That's the one. It's on display in the back to the right. The Runes books are right here," she pointed to the table not far from Rose.

"Thank you very much, Mrs. Macgregor," Rose smiled

"Anything for my favorite customer," she beamed.

Rose leafed through the rune books quickly, before finding one that she knew her mother would enjoy and then headed in pursuit of the Hippogriff book.

The store was narrow, but very long and it took awhile for Rose to weave her way through the stacks of books to find the Magical Creatures section.

She had just started reading the introduction of "A Perilous Journey: The Hippogriffs Annual Hunt for a New Home," when she felt someone's presence behind her.

"Hello, Rosie," the person whispered in her ear.


	8. Hard Cover

She didn't have to turn around to know who the owner of the voice was. She also knew full well he wasn't supposed to be here. 'Hasn't ever stopped him before," she reminded herself. Despite the small tug of curiosity that prompted her to request he state his business, her stubborn side refused to humor him. She decided the best course of action would be to completely ignore him.

"Gone deaf all of a sudden?" Scorpius teased after some time.

Rose continued to leaf through her book, refusing to even acknowledge his existence.

Scorpius sighed before filing through different tactics in his head. When he landed on one he knew her cantankerous personality would be unable to evade he acted without hesitation, despite the slap he was sure to receive.

"You know Rose, you're so hot when you're engaged in your books. You're so focused and so intense, I just can't keep my hands of you," Scorpius whispered huskily as he reached out one of his hands and quickly squeezed the right cheek of her behind.

Rose let out a squeak. She hadn't expected Scorpius to be so forward. A quick zap of pleasure circulated through her body. She could still feel a phantom sensation of Scorpius' quick grab and it felt wonderful-but completely rude and inappropriate. 'Rude and uncalled for," she pressed. Rose regained her footing once more, slammed her book and turned around. She shot him a sultry smile, which prompted pleasant surprise to work it's way across Scorpius' face. Rose then seized the moment to whack him upside the head with her book.

"I don't think that was very nice, Rose," Scorpius scorned as he rubbed his head with his hand. He cursed under his breath. Why did it have to be a hard cover book? Regardless, Scorpius tried to disregard his headache. "You were ignoring me, so I took necessary measures to get you to acknowledge me.

Rose scoffed and muttered, "Hardly."

"Look Rosie," Scorpius started once more switching to sincerity. "It's just you and me and that old hag at the front in this book store. You don't have to put up any walls between us. Okay?"

"Old hag?" Rose asked in disbelief. The fact that Scorpius was being disrespectful to an elderly person didn't irk her as much as the fact that he had spoken degradingly of a woman who had always been kind and friendly to Rose, a woman whom Rose wouldn't necessarily consider to be like a grandmother, but still had a familial place in Rose's heart.

"What? She's probably so deaf that we could shag back here and she wouldn't even notice," Scorpius smiled mischievously.

The image of Scorpius thrusting her up against the bookshelf in pure ecstasy flashed across Rose's mind before her consciousness quickly waved it away. Unfortunately for Rose it wasn't quick enough to prevent her face from turning crimson.

"Scorpius!" Rose exclaimed. She raised her book once more and proceeded to deliver blows to his shoulder, hoping that brute force of Scamander's book might knock some sense into the boy, as well as relieve the passion driven tension that seized her entire body.

"What?" Scorpius exclaimed as he blocked Rose's third blow.

"Mrs. MacGregor is a wonderful old woman and I could never even dream of defiling her bookshop in such a way. How can you be so awful?" Rose began. "Oh wait, you're a Malfoy, that's how."

"Oh come on Rosie, I didn't mean it like that. I wasn't thinking," Scorpius insisted.

"Mhm," Rose muttered skeptically. "What are you doing here anyways? Aren't you banned from Hogsmeade?"

"Speaking of awful, isn't it your fault that I can now only get to Hogsmeade by sneaking here?" Scorpius pointed. "Honestly Rose, with all the secret passages I've led you through, I thought you'd deduce that someone with such vast knowledge of the castle would be able to easily sneak out of the school and into town. You're supposed to be the know-it-all."

Rose took one more swing of the book at Scorpius out of frustration. She hated being called a know-it-all more than anything else, even jokingly. He grabbed the book mid swing and pulled it out of her hands.

"Now, baby, if you keep abusing me like this, I might have to punish you," he purred leaning closer to her.

Rose scoffed at Scorpius' utter disrespect. It was hard to believe that a tender moment had transpired between them the night before. 'No, it wasn't tender,' Rose attempted to convince herself. 'It was purely physical.' Even so, she had her standards.

"Don't call me baby," she warned. "It's degrading."

"You know, most girls would find that as a term of endearment" Scorpius pointed before stepping away from Rose to lean against the bookshelf, noting that it would be best to give her space.

"Well most girls have been indoctrinated into the misogynistic ideal that women aren't strong enough to fend for themselves and must be protected by men. Therefore they revel in being degraded to the status of an infant." Rose fumed snatching her book back from Scorpius.

"_Excuse_ me for trying to be romantic," her blonde haired nuisance stated before crossing his arms.

'What does he mean by "romantic?'' Rose thought. Her heart fluttered for a moment. 'No, Rose. Stop it. He's just trying to tame you.'

"It's not romantic. It's chauvinistic," Rose insisted. "Plus, I thought we agreed we'd stop trying to subdue each other. The last place I want to be is under your thumb, Scorpius Malfoy."

"I can assure you, Rose, I wouldn't want you under any part of me. I'd much rather you be on top," he winked.

Rose huffed in frustration before picking up her things and starting towards the front of the store.

"Rose, wait," Scorpius yelled as quietly as possible so the elderly bookkeeper wouldn't over hear.

Reluctantly Rose turned back to find Scorpius approaching her.

For a moment they stood there. It was apparent to Rose from the small opening and closing movements of Scorpius' lips that he was having trouble saying what he wanted to tell her.

"I'm sorry," he finally sighed reluctantly.

"You don't sound like it." Rose stared at him skeptically.

"To tell you the truth, only 80% of me is actually sorry. The other 20% still thinks you're a crazed feminist whose dominant personality drives most guys away."

Rose winced at his low blow. She couldn't believe he had brought her past botched relationships into the argument. It wasn't her fault that most boys they're age had immaturity levels that found not only her height but also her strong drive and independence intimidating.

"Crazed feminist? Dominant personality? Wow Malfoy, way to be an arsehole," Rose turned around once more and continued to the front of the shop, this time ignoring Scorpius' pleas to stop. Why had she thought it a good idea to let her guard down around him? How could she have fallen for his 'underneath this Slytherian façade I'm really a nice guy' gimmick? She was so angry with Malfoy and with herself that she didn't even care that Mrs. MacGregor saw them emerge from the book stacks together.

Rose came up to the desk and slammed both Scamander's book and the book for her mother on the counter.

"I see you found what you were looking for," Mrs. MacGregor said, obvious confusion on her face. "And maybe something else you didn't want to stumble upon as well," she added looking suspiciously over at Scorpius who waited in frustration near the door of the shop.

"Yes, I did. These will be perfect," Rose addressed the first part of Mrs. MacGregor's statement with conjured happiness. "How much do I owe you?"

"Rose, will you please stop for just a second!" Scorpius implored as the two walked down the Hogsmeade street. It had grown considerably darker since she entered the shop and snow had begun to fall.

"You know Malfoy, 20% of me is thinking that maybe I should stop to hear what you have to say, but the other 80% can't get over the fact that you're an arrogant disrespectful bastard."

They were still a few shops from The Three Broomsticks when, to her relief, she spotted a familiar face coming towards them.

"Rose! Where have you been?" Albus asked when he stopped in front of them.

"Well, I was at Tomes and Scrolls picking up a gift for my mum, when an annoying little fly decided to follow me around," Rose explained coming to a halt. Bitterness dripped from her voice as she acknowledged Scorpius.

"Malfoy, what are you doing here? You're not supposed to be in Hogsmeade," Albus warned.

"What's it to you Potter?" Scorpius sneered, perturbed by the unwanted intrusion on his and Rose's conversation…or lack there of.

"Well, seeing as the reason you lost you're Hogsmeade privileges was because you pushed my cousin down the stairs, I think I have the right to at least question your presence around her."

Rose cringed at her cousin's misinformation, reminded once again that she was lying to her family because of Scorpius.

"It seems you don't mind it when _he _protects you, Miss Don't-Baby-Me," Scorpius remarked.

"This is completely different and you know it!" Rose exclaimed.

"What in Merlin's name are you talking about?" Albus asked.

"As usual, Malfoy insists that I'm a crazed feminist," Rose informed.

Albus let out a long breath. As much as he loved his cousin and disliked Malfoy, he couldn't help but find their incessant arguing over the same topic annoying.

"Malfoy, you better get lost soon, or I might let have to inform my Uncle Ron that I saw you in Hogmeade harassing his daughter," Albus threatened.

Scorpius glared at Albus a moment before throwing a frustrated glance towards Rose. He then turned and walked hurriedly back the way they had come.

"Be careful around him Rosie, he's bad news, " Albus cautioned.

Rose nodded. As she and her cousin headed towards The Three Broomsticks, she looked over her shoulder following Scorpius' footsteps with her eyes before the distance and the tears blurring her vision obscured her line of sight.

"Rosie, are you alright?" Albus asked with concern when he saw his cousin wiping her eyes.

Taking a deep breath Rose replied with a convincing smile, "Yes, I'm fine. This blasted freezing air is just irritating my eyes is all. Let's get inside quick, I'll race you," she challenged in a steady voice before taking off in a sprint towards the pub.

"No fair, you have longer legs!" Albus protested as he dashed off after Rose.


	9. Home

_**A/N: Hello my readers! Here's the newest chapter. Sorry it has been so long. College kind of sucks up all time. I have all summer off though, and I've been working a lot on the story since I got home. I'm really excited to flesh out the next few chapters! So without further ado… **_

Dinner with her family at the Three Broomsticks was a blur. As much as Rose had been looking forward to having one last day with her brother and cousins at Hogsmeade before the holidays, she was no longer in the mood tonight. After her unsavory experience with Scorpius all she wanted to do was be back in her dorm, curled up alone in her bed.

When the group had paid their tab and began to leave, Rose decided to stay behind.

"I forgot to pick a Christmas gift up for my mum," Rose lied. This time she didn't feel so remorseful about doing so; it was starting to become the rule instead of the just the exception. "Go on back without me, I'll see you all tomorrow."

"Are you sure you feel ok doing that?" Albus asked, concern on his face. "Malfoy's probably still out there."

"You make him sound like some sort of monster or wild animal," Rose feigned amusement. "When in reality he's just some rodent I could easily kick aside."

"I'm serious Rose," Albus pressed. "He's hurt you once before and he'll most likely do it again. If his conscious let him do what he did in daylight with a large audience, who knows what he'd be capable of if he came across you alone in the dark."

"I agree with Albus. You should stay with us, Rosie. It's not worth the risk," Lily added.

'To late, guys…that risk has already been taken unfortunately,' Rose wanted to tell them. Instead she assured, "I'll be fine on my own. I'm a big girl now; I can handle myself. Plus, it would be nice for me to have some time alone with my thoughts."

"Come on, guys," Hugo began. "If my sister wants some time to herself, let her have it. I've seen her when she's angry, not even a snake like Malfoy could endure her wrath."

For once Rose was thankful her brother was with her to back her up.

Lily and Albus finally caved, and her three family members said goodbye to Rose outside the door to the pub.

Once Albus, Lily, and Hugo were no longer in sight, Rose began to stroll the near abandoned snowy lamp lit streets. Despite still craving her warm bed, Rose was relieved to finally be alone with her thoughts.

She hated Scoripus. She hated the way his lips curled when he sneered. She hated his self entitled attitude and his chauvinistic mindset. She hated how he seemed to know every button to push, which nerve to pinch, to send her reeling in emotional pain. She hated the way he coerced her into vulnerability, only to stab her with searing words and low emotional blows. And most all she hated herself for stooping down to his level, for surrendering her self-control so he could puppet her like a marionette.

Hot tears began to roll down her cheeks, and she half expected Scorpius to emerge from the shadows, basking in the glory of his triumph over her.

No. He hadn't triumphed over her. Not fully at least. Yes, it was because of him that she had broken almost every promise she had with herself, all in two weeks time, but that didn't mean that he had full control over her. All she had to do was cut her losses and never talk to him again. Even though she wouldn't emerge victorious, she could still end the war without losing.

Rose started trudging back towards the castle with newfound hope. Pretty soon she would be at home enjoying two Malfoy-free weeks. There was no better time for her to cleanse herself of the beast and rebuild herconfident and independent attitude.

During the few school days that followed, Rose successfully avoidedScorpiusMalfoy, both physically and mentally. Rose knew the presence of others was the only shield that would repel him. So, Rose made sure to always have a friend or family member by her side. When she was alone in her room, she put all of her mental energy into her schoolwork, and, seeing as her professors were bombarding her with work, successfully prevented Scorpius from plaguing her thoughts.

Rose's attempts to block Scorpius from her lifer proved fruitful, and soon Rose found herself sitting at the Weasely family dinner table in their modest colonial style Gordic's Hallow home.

"Well, it's so nice to have you two back home. The house has felt so empty without you," Rose's mother smiled, addressing her children after everyone had served themselves.

"Izgud ta b'om," Hugo intoned, his mouth stuffed with mashed potatoes.

"Hugo, how many times have I told you, don't speak with your mouth full!" Hermione chided.

"Sorry, Mum," Hugo replied after gulping his food down.

"Honestly, sometimes it amazes me how much you take after your father," she sighed.

"'Ey! Wot's tat 'posed t'men?" Ron exclaimed through the forkful in his mouth.

"Case and point," Hermione sighed, sharing a look of disbelief with her daughter before they both laughed.

"I'm just glad to have you back home after what Malfoy's git of a son did to you," Ron shared after swallowing his food. "I mean honestly, I'm outraged they didn't expel him."

Rose winced at her father's mention of Scorpius, and the lie she had wove to get back at him.

"Well it's easy to think that, dear, but I think Headmistress McGonagall handled it very well," Hermione countered. "I'm just glad you're alright now and in one piece."

"Honestly, I don't understand why the Ministry treated the Malfoy family as nicely as they did after the war," Ron continued.

"Yes, the Ministry could have handled the Malfoy's better," Hermione agreed. "But, the animosity towards them did drive Lucius and Narcissa out of the country. And judging by all the positive judicial reforms Draco has been a part ever since he returned from America, I think he learned his lesson."

Ron huffed. "Still, Draco should have never been allowed to procreate, especially when hatred and cowardice seem to run in the Malfoy genes."

"Now I'm not advocating for what Scorpius did, but I think attacking the Malfoy name isn't productive. Scorpius was punished for what he did, and Rose will be better prepared if he attempts to pull anything again," Hermione took a sip from her wine glass. "Now, if we could please drop the subject. I would like to have an enjoyable family dinner."

The rest of the meal consisted of Rose and Hugo apprising their parents of the class material they were covering, their overall performance in school, and the Qudditch statistics of all four houses.

After dessert Rose excused herself and went up to her room. Despite the mention of her snafu with Malfoy at the commencement of dinner, Rose was happy to be back home with her family.

She quickly changed into her nightclothes and crawled into bed. She had been lying there reading Scamander's book for an hour when she heard a tap on her window. Rose looked to the origin of the sound, and saw largeround orange eyes looking back at her through the glass. The owner of the magnificent eyes, an equally exotic looking tall pale owl, flew in gracefully, despite the heavy package clasped in its claws. It dropped the package on Rose's bed before perching on her outstretched arm.

"You're a beauty," Rose said in awe as she stroked the animal's feathers. Her curiosity being perked, she carefully tiptoed, so as not to disturb the bird, to her bookshelf and snatched the Complete Owl Field Guide her father had given her before her first year at Hogwarts. After awkwardly refilling through pages with just one hand, she found her feathered friend: Pharaoh Eagle Owl. 55-60cm. Predominantly found in North Africa.

"Well that explains why I've never seen you before," Rose cooed."Whoever owns you either lives very far away or has very exotic tastes."

The owl wooed and flapped its wings a couple of times before heading back out into the night. In its departure, a single feather fell from the bird and fluttered to the floor of her room. Rose picked up the tawny bespeckled object and put it with the other feathers she had collected over the years.

She then turned her attention to the large parcel sitting on her bed. It was, what appears to be, a large box wrapped in plain brown paper. There was no writing on the box, only a small brown envelop taped to the front addressed to Rose. She grabbed the envelope and tore it open to discover a card with nothing on it save for five words: "Do Not Open Before Christmas."

Rose looked at the package and then back to the note. For a moment she thought maybe it was another last minute gift from Nemo, but she knew the owl wasn't his.

"Maybe… No, don't even go there, Rose," she warned herself out loud, before quickly stuffing the package under her bed. "Regardless, you don't have to worry about it for another three days," she assured herself before crawling back into bed. She lay there in the dark for what seemed like eternity before finally drifting off to sleep.

The problem was, she did worry about it for the next three days, and come Christmas morning she was itching to open the mysterious box. Despite her burning curiosity, she decided it would be best not to open it until later that night, when she could be alone.

As soon as Rose woke up she quickly headed downstairs, to find Hugo already waiting near the Christmas tree. Her mother and father followed her down not long after. Although neither her nor her brother still believed in "Santa Clause," it was still a tradition in her immediate family for the four of them to open their gifts to each other Christmas morning, before the rest of their relations came over for dinner.

"Looks like Santa came this year!' Ron announced. "The milk and cookies are gone!"

Rose and Hugo exchanged looks of annoyance. Despite the knowledge that his children no longer believed that a fat man in red clothing shimmied down the chimney with a bag full of gifts, Ronald Weasley still insisted on leaving cookies and milk out for the nonexistent old man and carrot sticks for his equally fictitious flying reindeer: just one of the many quirks that embarrassed (and secretly amused) his wife and kids.

"Alright, Hugo, why don't you grab the first gift then," Ron suggested.

"It's for me," Hugo announced, "From mum and dad,"

By the time they were finished unwrapping, Rose had a new pair of gloves and matching hat from her brother, 3 new cashmere sweaters from her father (presumably picked out by her mother), and 4 books on the most recently published research in the field of magical creatures, including another copy of the Hippogriff book Rose was already halfway through.

After everything was cleaned up and their new gifts had been put away, the family returned to their respected rooms to change into their Christmas best before they commenced preparations for the large crowd that would be coming over that night.

"There's my bright and shining star!" Rose's grandfather, Dr. Peter Granger, called as Rose entered the living room.

Rose greeted her maternal grandparents with a hug and a kiss, before sitting down in one of the two large maroon armchairs that faced the matching sofa that they occupied.

"How's school going, darling?" her grandmother asked. "Splendidly, I presume?"

"Yes," Rose responded. "I'm done with my general education classes, so I can finally concentrate on the ones I really want to take."

"Fantastic!" her grandfather beamed. "What about you, Hugo?" he asked her brother who had just entered the room.

"You know, same old same old," Hugo shrugged. "Year's gone by fast, so I can't complain, means school'll be over soon."

"Hugo, you should really start focusing more on your studies," Mrs. Granger encouraged. "With your sisters good grades, you have a lot to live up to!"

"See, Hugo. If you won't listen to me, you should listen to grandmum," Hermione added as she came in with some appetizers.

"Don't pressure the boy," Ron defended. "He might not be an academic, but he sure as hell can hit a bludger!"

"A what?" Rose's grandmother asked, a look of concern on her face.

"A bludger, mother. It's part of Qudditch," Hermione responded. "The game Ronald's sister was a professional league player for."

Just then the doorbell rang followed by the entrance of Harry, Ginny, and their three children. Not long after Uncle Percy and his family arrived with Uncle Charlie, followed closely by Professor Longbottom and his wife Hannah.

Once everyone had greeted each other, Hermione announced that dinner was ready. As everyone entered the dining room that Ron had magically expanded to accommodate two large round tables, Hermione pulled Rose aside.

"I wanted to let you know, that I invited one of my coworkers over," her mother began. "She should be arriving any minute now - it's just like her to be late – Anyways, she's the head of the Being division at the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. I invited her over because I thought it would be good for you to chat with her about future career opportunities."

"Brilliant!" Rose exclaimed. Although she enjoyed school, she was extremely looking forward to what would await her in the field of magical creatures after graduation. "Thanks a bunch, Mum."

"But fair warning," Hermione added. "She's a tad…what's a good word…eccentric"

No sooner did Rose's mother finish talking, then the front door swung open to reveal a tall young woman with square black-rimmed glasses. She was dressed in a long neon green winter coat and red stockings. She had a matching red fedora hat placed a top her red streaked blonde hair.

"Hello everyone," she practically sang. "So sorry I'm late!"

Hermione turned to the bewildered crowd seated in the dinner room. "Everyone, this is friend, Ms. Victoria Blackwater."


	10. Mother, Daughter

Victoria Blackwater indeed proved to be quite, as her mother put it, eccentric. She was a big woman with an even bigger personality.

"So Rose, I hear you're the first of the Weasely clan to be sorted into a house other than Gryffindor," Ms. Blackwater, who was sitting across from the young witch, commented.

"Well, Molly was the first to not be in Gryffindor, but I am the only Hufflepuff," Rose replied. Despite knowing that she shouldn't, Rose felt a little uneasy around the woman that her mother thought would serve to be a good mentor for her daughter. Ms. Blackwater had many qualities that intrigued Rose, but from the looks on her cousins' faces, she knew they did not accept this stranger.

"I was sorted into Ravenclaw," Molly stated proudly.

"Ah, my late husband was a Ravenclaw. Very bright bunch. Pretty arrogant as well," Ms. Blackwater laughed. A mixture of shock and hurt appeared on Molly's face. "I was a loyal and amiable Hufflepuff like yourself," the eccentric witch addressed Rose with a smile.

"And rude," Molly whispered louder than intended.

Ignoring Molly's remark, Ms. Blackwater continued. "Your mother also told me that you aspire to work in the field of magical creatures. Is that right?"

"Yes, Mrs. Blackwater," Rose nodded.

"Oh, please. Mrs. Blackwater is my mother. Call me Victoria," she corrected.

"I'm sorry, your mother? Didn't you say you had been married?" Lily asked, puzzled.

"Yes. I was. But even when Victor was alive, I detested the name Figs. There's no dignity in a name like that! So I kept my own!" Victoria exclaimed.

"Oh," was all Lily could say in response. She was obviously taken aback by Victoria's brashness.

"There's a Madame Blackwater at Hogwarts. She's the nurse," Hugo piped in.

"That's Sylvia, my brother's wife," Victoria responded. Her voice indicated that she was less than thrilled by the mention of her sister-in-law. Rose decided it was best not to ask why she wasn't spending her Christmas with them.

"So, Rose, I'm assuming your mother told you about my profession and intended that I talk to you about it," Victoria stated. "At least, I'm hoping that's the only reason I was put at the kiddie table."

Unfortunately, Victoria wasn't completely off color about the statement. It seemed that Rose's mother had made sure to seat all the older couples at one table, and put the teenagers and twenty-somethings, save for Victoria and Uncle Charlie, at the other.

"Now, it's not entirely kids," Charlie, who was sitting right next to Victoria, defended. "Unless, you mean 'kid-at-heart,' then I fit right in."

"Ah, that explains it!" she exclaimed. "Anyways, Rose, what would you like to know from me?"

"Oh, I'm not sure," Rose started. She was taken off guard by the question. She also felt awkward having a conversation centered on herself at a table with 7 other people. "Um, I guess, what should I start doing to prepare for life after graduation?"

"Well, depends what aspect you're interested in? There are many different directions you could go in. There's the Ministry side of it, which I'm involved in," Victoria began.

"Or there's the research side of it. That's mainly what I do in Romania," Charlie added.

"Research in Romania?" Victoria turned to Charlie.

"Yes, I've been studying dragons for the past 20 years," Charlie stated proudly.

"Well all be," Victoria smiled. She nervously brushed her hair back behind her cheek as she gazed up into his eyes. "I've always found dragons to be very sexy."

An awkward silence fell over the table. No one was quite sure what to say next.

Lily turned to Rose and quietly whispered, "Ew, she has to be at least half his age."

Albus who had overheard his sister's remark choked on the water he had just taken a sip from. Another moment passed with Albus' coughing as the only sound at the table.

Victoria and Charlie continued to do nothing but gaze into each other's eyes.

"So," Molly began, clearing her throat. "Albus, do you have any plans for what you want to do after graduation?"

"Oh yeah," Albus jumped at the opportunity to drive the table discussion back to some sort of normalcy, despite the fact that his eyes were still watering. "I really love Potions. I'd love to work at St. Mungo's or the like discovering new concoctions to cure people."

"You know, my boyfriend Alexander works at St. Mungo's apothecary, I'll make sure to introduce you to him this summer," Molly replied.

"That'd be fantastic!" Albus exclaimed before breaking into another coughing fit.

The only other sound at the table was now the hushed chatter between Victoria and Charlie.

"What have you been up to in America Lucy?" Rose asked quickly referring to the fact that after having a difficult first year at Hogwarts, her cousin Lucy transferred to her American mother's alma mater and was now a 6th year at Proctor's School for Witches.

"You know, I've really gotten into Divination. It's like so much bigger over in America then it is here," Lucy replied. It seemed that she had also adopted an American accent.

"If I didn't know any better, I would like think that like you weren't even like British," James mocked his cousin.

"Oh, shut up," Lucy snapped. "All you do is freaking chase balls for a living."

"That's right. And I get paid ridiculous amounts of money to do it," James smiled slyly. He had recently become Seeker for the Hollyhead Harpies, and made sure everyone knew about his paycheck.

The rest of the night ran more smoothly. Rose exchanged contact information with Victoria, who was otherwise distracted by Uncle Charlie for the reminder of the night. Despite the odd events during the night, Rose always enjoyed her family's large gatherings and this Christmas was no exception.

"Well, it looks like Charlie's back in the game," Rose's father declared after everyone had left. "Would never take him to be into the loony bird type though."

Hermione gave him a warning look. "Victoria is a perfectly…interesting person."

"No, I agree with da. She's fucking nuts," Hugo added.

"Hey, watch your language!" Ron chided.

"I'm just disappointed she was too distracted to talk to you more, Rose," Hermione commented.

"It's fine, mum, really. We exchanged information so if I have any questions I can just send her an owl," Rose reassured.

"Alright, well I'm glad something came out of," Hermione concluded.

Rose helped her mother and father clean up before heading back up the stairs. It wasn't until she opened the door to her room and saw her bed that she remembered what was hiding under it.

Rose dashed over and slid the package out. She stared at it for a moment. What would happen when she opened it? Was it really from him? Part of her dreaded it was and the other part of her knew she'd be disappointed if it wasn't. 'Only one way to find out.'

She took a deep breath and then slowly began to unwrap the plain brown paper engulfing the box. When she lifted the lid her heart fluttered. It was the dress that she had tried on in La Elegant Enchantresses. There was also a small rectangular piece of white card stock sitting on top of it. On it there was a finely detailed sketch of a rose with a few words scrawled in elegant cursive:

For my Rose

~S.M.

His Rose. It was possessive. His. Like he owned her. Yet there was still something romantic about the whole thing. Even she couldn't deny that.

Rose could feel tears coming to her eyes. She was so overwhelmed with it all that she didn't hear her mother open the door.

"Rose, I just wanted to thank you-" Hermione stopped when she saw her daughter on the ground crying. "What's the matter, Rose?" she asked in a quiet but alarmed voice as she kneeled down next to her daughter.

She looked at the box in front of Rose, saw the initials on the handwritten note, and began to piece together the reason for her daughter's tears. She pulled her daughter into an embrace. Rose cried into her mother's shoulder.

"I'm sorry, Mum. I'm so sorry," Rose repeated through sobs.

"There, there. It's alright," Hermione cooed, even though she wasn't entirely sure what her daughter was apologizing for.

Hermione held on to her daughter for a little while longer, until Rose finally calmed down enough to look her mother in the eye.

"Now, tell Mum what's the matter," Hermione began. "I promise I won't judge."

Rose took a deep breath and then everything poured out of her like a gutter during a torrential downpour. Every event, every thought, every feeling that transpired since the night Scorpius decided to start an actual dialogue between him and Rose. She told her mother about reveling in Scorpius' close proximately, about throwing herself down the stairs as a twisted (and in retrospect, incredibly stupid) form of revenge, about his mixed signals and her equally mixed reactions, about how she was terrified of how the rest of the family would react if they ever found out, and most importantly about how badly he her hurt the last time they spoke.

The whole time Hermione listened and nodded in understanding until she was certain her daughter had finished.

"Well, if ever there was a tale of two star-crossed lovers," Hermione smiled. "Just don't end up like Juliet. You're much to smart for that."

"Mother this isn't funny!" Rose cried, turning away from her. "And…" she paused, "I never said I was in love with him."

"I'm sorry, darling," Hermione apologized, placing her hand on her daughter's cheek and gently turning it towards her once more. "When you get to be my age you'll understand how things that seem so big and scary now, aren't as melodramatic as you make them out to be."

"Mum, you're not helping," Rose sighed, tears still silently streaming down her face.

"Well, I'm not pleased with you for lying about the whole staircase incident; however, I don't hold anything against you for having feelings towards someone. No matter what last name he may have."

Rose nodded.

"Look, I understand this is all scary and confusing now, I do. But one thing you can be sure of is that Scorpius is probably just as confused as you are. It seems Malfoy men aren't very good when it comes to emotions"

Rose looked at her mother skeptically.

I'll let you in on a little secret." Hermione sighed and leaned back up against the nightstand. "Remember how I mentioned that Draco, Scorpius' father, retreated to America for a five years after the war was over?"

"Yes, but what does that have to do with anything."

Hermione ignored her daughter's impatience. "Well, each year during those five years I would receive an extravagant gift from an anonymous sender on my birthday and at Christmas time. Mostly it was jewelry, but one time I received a very rare manuscript written in the rune language –must've cost thousands of galleons.

"Although it was a different owl carrying the packages every time, I had my suspicions as to who was sending them. Sure enough on my birthday, six years after the Battle of Hogwarts, Draco came to my office at the Ministry just as I was getting off from work. He asked me if he could take me out for a drink and I obliged.

"There he explained that he was the one who had sent me all the gifts. He said that he knew they could never make up for the way he treated me in school, for the cowardice he showed when he was under the influence of his father and, subsequently, Voldemort.

"He told me that although he had an awful way of showing it, deep down he had always loved me. He claimed he had been so brainwashed into believing that anything less than pure blood was dirty blood, that when he realized his feelings for me he panicked. In that panic he retaliated against me, even though he knew none of it was my fault. Then finally, he apologized."

"W-what did you do?" Rose asked. Her tears had stopped while she listened to her mother's story.

"I accepted his apology," Hermione stated.

"You what?" Rose asked amazed. "After everything he put you and dad through?"

"Yes," she replied. "Rose, one of the most important lessons you can learn is about forgiveness. Do it too often, and you will be disrespected and trampled on. Do it seldom or not at all, and you harbor all that anger inside of you; you end up hurting yourself more than the person who caused the pain in the first place. Remember that."

Rose nodded. She knew in her mind that what her mother said was logical. Her heart was still having some trouble juggling with the idea. "Then what happened?" she pressed.

Hermione sighed. "I told him that it took a lot of bravery to do what he just did. I said that I was proud of him, something I don't think he had ever really heard anyone say to him before. You should have seen how his face lit up. He asked me if I would see him again, if he could have a second chance with me. I told him I was flattered, but sorry, I was already accounted for. I held up my hand to show him my engagement ring." Hermione looked down at her hand and traced the diamond ring that still resided on her finger right below her wedding band.

Rose smiled at the thought of her father proposing to her mother. She could just imagine what they looked like when they were young and in love. How beautiful it was that they still had so much love for each other after all these years.

"From what I could tell he was pretty heart broken after that, but two years later he married Astoria and Scorpius was born not long after that. He moved on eventually. I'm happy that he did. Draco and I haven't talked ever since, but we still give each other a nod of acknowledgement when we cross paths at the Ministry." Hermione concluded her story with a smile.

"Wow." It was Rose's turn to sigh. "So, did you ever have feelings for Mr. Malfoy?" Rose let the question sit on her lips for a while before she gave voice to it.

"It might have crossed my mind during those first few years after the war. But I knew I could never love Draco, at least not the way I love your father. We go too far back, you're father and I. He was one of my best friends first and we grew to love each other more deeply as the years went on. To me that's the best kind of love. Passion's fantastic and fun, but it comes and goes. At the end of the day, you need to be able to work and grow together, to understand one another, to trust each other. Passion _and_ partnership, that's the recipe for true love."

"Wow, mum," Rose let out the breath she didn't realize she had been holding. "That's deep."

Hermione laughed and then turned to her daughter. "If Scorpius is anything like his father, which I get the sense the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree in this case, the hurtful quips are just a defense mechanism against his own confusion. Nothing my Rose can't handle," Hermione smiled as she rubbed her daughters back. "You're still young yet. Don't worry about Scorpius too much. Just follow your intuition. You're bright enough that it won't lead you astray."

"But what about dad? He hates Scorpius. He hates all of the Malfoys"

"Your father is a passionate man. He can be fierier than his hair sometimes," Hermione chuckled. "But, he loves you immensely, as do I, and will support you in everything you do. He just wants what's best for you. Even if he needs some convincing on what exactly that is."

Rose took a deep breath. "Thanks Mum." She hugged her mother. "I really appreciate it."

"What are mothers for?" Hermione beamed at her daughter. "Now, let's see how you look in this dress!"


	11. Ignorance

"Nemo!" Rose called when she entered the Hufflepuff common room a week and a half later.

Nemo stood up from the armchair he had been lounging in and extended his arms as Rose came closer with her arms wide open.

"I've missed you!" she squealed, as the two friends embraced.

"I missed you too," Nemo laughed.

The two parted and sat down together on the large comfy sofa that faced the fireplace.

"So, how was your holiday?" Rose asked.

"You mean stuck in the castle with five other students while everyone else was at home with their families? Splendid," he answered. His voice was full of sarcasm.

"I thought Chelsea's family had invited you over for break?"

"That's what I had thought too. But then she dumped me the morning we were going to leave," Nemo explained. He crossed his arms and stared into the fireplace.

Rose's face crinkled in confusion.

"All I could think was 'what the fuck?' It was so completely out of the blue," Nemo expressed Rose's thoughts.

"I'm sorry Nemo," Rose consoled. She reached her arms around him and squeezed him in a side hug. "You should have told me. You could have come over for Christmas. Merlin knows, we had enough people over at my house that I don't think my mother would have noticed an extra body," she chuckled.

"Yeah, well it's not like I got any owls from you." Nemo tried to shrug Rose off.

"Nemo," Rose began, amazed that he was starting to take his anger out on her, even though she did feel slightly guilty for not trying to contact him over break. "To be fair, you didn't send me anything either. I think we're both at fault here."

"What do you mean?" Nemo started. "I think I sent you an owl five times."

"Really?" Rose asked, genuinely puzzled. "Honest to Merlin, I never got anything from you. I mean I was away at my Uncle Bill's cottage in France and then we went to Vermont for a week. I must not have been home when they came."

"Figures," Nemo sighed.

"I'm really sorry, Nemo." Rose apologized. She clinched her friend's right bicep. "I was just so distracted this break I didn't even think about writing anyone. Had I gotten you're owls you know I would've responded instantly."

Nemo sighed and finally turned to face Rose once more. "I know, you're right. It was just a bloody awful holiday. I didn't even hear from my mother."

Rose gave Nemo another comforting squeeze.

Mrs. Flaherty, Nemo's mother, was the head editor at a bigwig muggle publishing company. Christmas had always been primetime for book releases which in turn caused Mrs. Flaherty to, as Nemo put it, "be more concerned with bloody books than she is about her own damn son." As for Mr. Flaherty, neither Nemo nor his mother had seen him since the day Professor Neville Longbottom visited their penthouse apartment in Northern Ireland to explain the gift their son had been graced with. Only a handful of people at Hogwarts, mainly professors, knew, and Nemo liked to keep it that way. He hadn't even told Chelsea about it.

"I'm really sorry, Nemo," Rose cooed. She felt insanely guilty for abandoning her friend like she did, especially during a time when he needed her most.

"I'll tell you what," she smiled coming up with an idea to cheer her friend up and hopefully redeem herself. "It's Saturday, and since most people won't be back until tomorrow, why don't you and I sneak into the kitchen, steal some marshmallows and hot dogs, and camp out in the common room for old times sake?" Rose smiled.

"That sounds brilliant!" Nemo beamed. After the lonely break, all he wanted was to spend time with his best friend. "You don't know how much I love you, Rose Weasley," he laughed.

That night Nemo and Rose huddled close together by the fireplace, s'mores sticks in hand.

"I really missed doing stuff like this," Nemo commented after a long period of silence.

"Yeah, I do to." Rose sighed. "I'm sorry I've been an awful mate lately."

"No, you haven't," Nemo argued. "You've been going through a lot...you deserve one, what's the muggle term?" Nemo pondered a moment, "Get out of jail free card."

"I know. I still feel awful though," Rose continued. "Break ups are always bitter business."

"Yeah, I know. But I don't think I'm as upset as I should be," Nemo contemplated. "We were kind of a shallow couple."

"Well, to be perfectly honest with you, I never liked her much," Rose admitted. "She's constantly mooching off my stuff, and since she has that whole 'I love the world and everyone in it' vibe, she makes you feel guilty if you don't let her."

Nemo laughed.

"Nemo!" Rose shrieked with laughter. "Your marshmallow's on fire!"

Nemo quickly blew the flame out, and proceeded to gobble his charred treat.

"Ew! You're gross," Hermione laughed.

"What? The number one rule of camping is to never let a perfectly edible marshmallow go to waste," Nemo defended.

"I thought the number one rule was to hang your garbage up high in a tree to keep bears from getting at it," Rose countered. Feeling that her marshmallow was cooked to her liking, she began to construct her s'more.

"That to," Nemo smiled. He quickly grabbed the s'more Rose had just finished making and took a bite out of it. "Wow, Rose! You're really good at making these!"

"Hey! That's mine!" Rose leapt towards him, attempting to recapture the treat that was rightfully hers.

"Oh, come now, Rose," Nemo teased, holding the treat just out of Rose's reach. "After all you've put me through I think I have the right to eat a certified Rose Weasley s'more.

"Fine," Rose huffed. She turned to the bag of marshmallows and proceeded to cook one.

"So, since we're on the topic of botched relationships, Albus told me about what happened between you and Malfoy at Hogsmeade before break.

"Yeah," Rose sighed. She wasn't particularly fond of revisiting the fight.

"From what he told me I wasn't sure if it was for show or for real."

"Unfortunately it was for real this time. He snuck out to Hogsmeade and then cornered me in Tomes and Scrolls," she began. "As usual he took his banter too far, and ended up actually hurting my feelings." She stared dismally at the fire.

Now it was Nemo's turn to comfort Rose. He rested his head on her shoulder.

"I'll let you in on a little secret, Rose. Guys suck," Nemo confessed in a matter-of-fact tone.

Rose chuckled.

"It's completely, 100%, true. Granted, girls aren't much better. I guess both genders are to blame, really."

"I think we should place all the blame on hormones. The chemicals in our brains are secretly out to get us," Rose suggested, a twinkle in her eye.

"Sounds about right." Nemo nodded his head and then laughed.

"In all seriousness, I had convinced myself to end all these shenanigans with," she paused, tasting the word on her lips before she spoke it, "Scorpius."

"But…" he encouraged her to continue.

"But, then he sent me this absolutely beautiful dress that I had tried on when I went shopping with Lily." Rose smiled. "I'm not even sure how he knew about it…"

"Wow, Rose. I didn't think you could be so shallow," her friend teased.

Rose lightly slapped him on the arm.

"I'll have you know I also had a heart to heart with my mum," Rose insisted. "She made me totally reconsider the whole situation."

"So your mother knows about you two?"

"Yes, but she's the only one," Rose answered. "And I think I'm going to give this whole thing a second chance."

The following week went by in a blur of ink and paper. No sooner had Rose and her classmates stepped back into the classroom then her professors began overloading them with assignments. Despite her heavy workload, Rose tried to get Scorpius' attention. She desperately wanted to talk to him. The only problem was Scorpius seemed to be avoiding her like the plague.

Whenever she caught his eye in class, Scorpius would quickly look away. The many notes she sent him in an attempt to start up a conversation went unanswered. He even stopped participating in their usual hallway banter. Scorpius' blatant avoidance of her was starting to hurt much more than any nasty or snide remark he had ever made about her.

Rose tried to arrange a meeting with him, in the secret passageway near the library, but he never showed up. She had waited by the Hufflepuff-Slytherian staircase before breakfast and after dinner for a week, but it was no use. It seemed as if he was always with someone. She even sent him a gift on his birthday, a book on "The Astrology of Love," hoping it would act as a cute peace offering. She received no response; not even a thank you card.

A month past, at which point Rose was seriously considering going up to him in the crowded hallways and asking him point blank why he was ignoring her. Despite her frustration, Rose was fully aware of how awfully that could backfire, but she wasn't about to give up either. She knew continuing doing what she was doing wouldn't work; she needed something more. She needed a plan.

Then, on a cold mid-February morning, as if the gods had heard her plea for help, one fell right into her lap…literally.

"Albus, you're owl's done it again!" Rose exclaimed. She picked up the letter that her cousin's not-so-coordinated owl had dropped on top of her. Sure enough, the name on the envelope clearly read "Albus S. Potter."

"Sorry," Albus shrugged before taking the letter from Rose. He carefully tore the envelope open. He sighed in annoyance when he read the piece of green cardstock that emerged.

"What is it?" Hugo asked eagerly.

"'You have been cordially invited to the 19th annual Malfoy March Masquerade.'"

"Wow, try saying that five times fast," Lily giggled.

"I've been getting invitations for this thing since 4th year. Dad says that he's been getting them since the whole 'masquerade madness' began." Albus informed. "Apparently they invite my parents and yours every year, but they've always declined."

"Really? How come I've never heard about it?" Rose asked.

"Maybe Scorpius hates you slightly more than me," Albus joked.

Rose tried to hide the sting his words had unknowingly dealt with a smile. "Must be." The words felt cold and dead in her mouth.

"So, I assume you're not going?" Lily asked more for confirmation then out of curiosity.

"Bloody hell, I won't go any where near Malfoy, let alone his fucking house," Albus declared.

The other three looked at each other and then back at the elder Potter in amazement. Albus never swore.

Although Rose felt a sudden need to vomit, she took a deep breath and tried to calm herself down. This was her chance. She would go to the party wearing the dress Scorpius had gotten her (all she needed to do was find a mask.) Then she would sneak into his room. At the end of the night he'd retire, then one of two things would happen: either he would finally sit down and they could talk about what exactly whatever they had was, or he would kick her out.

'Well…I've had worse plans,' Rose tried to assure herself. Knowing deep down, that in fact, this was her worst plan yet.

All she needed to do now was get the invitation from Albus without him, or anyone else for that matter, seeing.

"Hey, Albus!" a high-pitched squeaky voice called. The four of them turned to the noise. It came from a big boned girl of medium height with curly auburn hair and green eyes who was heading towards Rose's cousin.

"Who's that?" he quickly turned to his sister. Unlike her older brother, Lily knew everyone.

"That's Sinead Houlihan," Lily began.

"Wow, you can't get anymore Irish then that," Hugo chuckled.

"She's a 5th year Ravenclaw. Her friend Peggy told my friend Charlotte who told me that she fancies you," Lily sputtered quietly just before the girl was in hearing range of them.

While everyone was distracted by the facts Lily was streaming about the strange red headed girl, Rose took the opportunity to steal the invitation. She muttered a spell underneath her breath and the piece of paper zoomed into her hand.

"Now, if you'll excuse me," Lily started. "I have a Slytherian boy I need speak with regarding what is and isn't appropriate to do while dating one of my bests friends, and the wrath he will endure if he steps a toe out of line." And with that she got up and skipped over to the Slytherian table.

"Well, I best be going as well," Rose stated. "I cannot be late for DADA again."

Albus looked pleadingly up at his cousin. The poor boy was still clueless when it came to girls. Rose felt a tiny pang of guilt for abandoning him, but she wiped it away thinking, 'He needs to learn sometime.'

When Rose reached the 5th floor, she still had ten minutes before class. She made her way slowly to her classroom and had just made the final turn when she saw three figures leaning up against the windows of the corridor just outside the door: Scorpius Malfoy, George Goyle, and Nicholas Zabini.

Rose quickly did an about-face and hid just on the other side of the wall. She was desperate to hear any news of Scorpius, and she took the opportunity to eavesdrop on his conversation.

The boys, who had not noticed Rose's appearance, continued to talk.

"So I hear Paxton finally kicked Lysander to the crib," Goyle smirked. He gave Nicholas a playful punch in the shoulder. "Now's your time to swoop in an mend her breaking heart."

"If anyone has a breaking heart it's Lysander," Nicholas laughed. "It's more likely she'll be looking for a new bloke to keep her occupied at night," he winked.

Rose rolled her eyes. 'Way to think with your dicks gentleman,' she thought.

"What about you Scorpius?" Goyle turned to his friend, who seemed lost in his own world.

"Hm?" Scorpius replied, pulled from his thoughts.

"Do you have a bint you're after?" Zabini pressed.

"Oh," Scorpius replied, obviously not interested in the conversation. "Not really."

Goyle and Zabini looked at their friend quizzically.

"Come on, mate," Zabini started. "The great playboy, Scorpius Malfoy, doesn't have a bird he wants to take to bed?"

"I hear Helena has been talking about you an awful lot. You've caught the eyes of a 7th year," Goyle encouraged.

"Yeah," Scorpius shrugged. "She's fuckable."

Despite Scorpius' dismissive attitude, Rose was still hurt by his attraction to another girl.

"What about the Red Headed Wonder-Tits Weasel?" Goyle teased.

Rose's face turned crimson. Her eyes narrowed. Her right hand shot to her pocket and she gripped her wand as her left hand balled into a fist.

If she wasn't so keen on hearing Scorpius' reply, she would have hexed Goyle half way across the hall.

"Yeah, you two haven't had a screaming match since before holiday. What gives?"

Scorpius took some time before answering the question. "I've gotten bored with her. She's made it clear that I'm never getting in her pants, and have no use for her otherwise," he shrugged.

Hot tears threatened to let lose from Rose's eyes. He didn't mean that. He couldn't have.

"What a shame," Goyle commented. "She's so fiery. I bet she's fantastic in bed."

"She's still a virgin," Zambini mentioned, as if this was an undesirable trait.

"Even better," Goyle pressed. "I'd pop that cherry any day." A ghoulish smile crept across his face and Rose wanted nothing more than to kick him where it would hurt.

"You guys are vulgar," Scorpius stated, his face marked with disgust.

"What about that Chelsea girl?" Zabini asked Goyle.

"Now she's a fine piece of real estate! She's got an annoying voice, but nothing that duck tape wouldn't fix," Goyle smirked.

Despite Rose's dislike for her roommate, no girl deserved to be treated like this. How could Scorpius hang around these bastards?

"Apparently she finally called it off with that Nemo bloke," Zabini informed.

"Serves him right," Goyle began. "What kind of a name in Nemo anyways? Scamander told me it means 'No one' in Latin. Who the hell names their kid 'no one?'" he snickered.

That was it. She couldn't deal with their shit any longer. She emerged from behind her hiding place.

"Nemo is the name of a submarine captain in a classic novel. Although you wouldn't know that because you never learned how read," she spat at Goyle.

"Secondly, women are human beings. Not walking corpses that exist solely for you to have something to jerk off to when you've nothing else better to do." She took time to look all three of them hard in the eye, lingering on Scorpius the longest. "You all deserve to have your dicks cut off and shoved up your own asses."

Rose was surprised at herself. She hadn't known she had the capacity to insult someone with as much vulgarity as she just did.

By this time, many of their classmates had arrived and were standing a few meters away, watching the scene unfold.

"Calm down, Rosie," Goyle mocked. "Everyone knows you're just pent up because you're too tight. We still have a few minutes before class. I can take care of that if you like," he winked.

Goyle reached his filthy paws out to grab Rose's shoulders, but she responded quickly with a flick of her wand.

"Castreo!" she yelled.

Goyle cried out, grabbing his crotch and doubling over in pain.

"You bitch!" Zabini stammered raising his wand.

"Stop!" Scorpius yelled. Rose, Nicholas, and the rest of the students crowded around turned to him in surprise.

"She's not worth the detention," Scorpius claimed, avoiding Rose's eyes.

Zabini lowered his wand.

"What is going on here?" Professor Taylor, who had just arrived on the scene, demanded. She was a young witch in her early 30s. From what Rose had gathered from her parents, Professor Taylor had started as an Auror right out of Hogwarts. She graduated training top of her class, but a horrible accident on one of her first missions had torn her right leg off. Since she was forced out of commission, Headmistress McGonagal had invited her to be the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.

Rose, Scorpius, and Nicholas looked over to the professor who was fast approaching them. Goyle still stayed coiled up on the ground in pain.

"Rose attacked George out of nowhere!" Zabini cried, literally pointing a finger at Rose.

"It wasn't out of nowhere!" Rose insisted. "He tried to grab me!"

"Enough," Professor Taylor boomed. "Mr. Zabini, if you could be so kind as to escort Mr. Goyle to the hospital wing," she requested.

Zabini quickly complied, taking his friend by the shoulders and lifting him back on his feet. After the two had pushed past the crowd of students, the Professor then turned to Rose and Scorpius.

"As for you two, I will talk to you after class."

For the duration of class, Rose sat on the edge of her seat. She tried to concentrate on the professor's lecture, but she was too anxious to focus. This was the closet she had come to talking with Scorpius for over a month, but it wasn't the one-on-one flirtatious banter she had expected.

She looked over her shoulder to steal a glance over at him. She could have sworn she caught him looking at her, but he moved his head so quickly from her direction she couldn't be sure. Merlin, she just wanted class to be over.

When class finally ended, Rose and Scorpius both approached Professor Taylor's desk. Rose opened her mouth to speak, but the professor held her hand up to Rose, signaling for her to remain quiet.

"I would like to hear Mr. Malfoy's recounting of events first, if you wouldn't mind, Ms. Weasley," the witch requested.

Rose nodded her head in understanding, biting her lower lip in the process.

"George, Nicholas, and I were hanging out in front of the classroom. George brought up the topic of girls and he was pretty vulgar in his description of what he wanted to do with the girls he found attractive. One of them was Rose." Scorpius paused for a moment. "I guess she overheard because she came charging at us and confronted us. George made a comment about how she was…well, he said she was tight, and that he would 'take care' of it for her. He made a move to grab her and she hexed him. That's about when you arrived," he finished.

"So if I'm correct," Professor Taylor began. "Rose acted out of self defense?"

"It might have been a bit overkill, but yeah." Scorpius confirmed.

"And you believe this explanation to be true?" Professor Taylor asked Rose.

"Well I wouldn't call it overkill." Rose pursed her lips in frustration.

Professor Taylor gave her a warning look.

"But yes, that's what happened," Rose agreed.

Feeling satisfied with the answers she received, the professor dismissed her two students.

Scorpius quickly strode out of the room and Rose hurried after him attempting to catch up.

Rose finally fell into step with Scorpius.

"Thanks for that," she said, hoping that he would at least look at her, let alone talk to her.

Scorpius didn't acknowledge Rose's existence, but she could see his body was tense as if he was restraining himself.

They turned the corner into a much more crowded corridor where speaking to him out in the open was much more dangerous.

Rose finally slowed down her pace, defeated, and Scorpius took off down the hallway without her.


	12. Future Plans

The next morning Rose took her usual seat towards the front of the Hufflepuff table. Her bloodshot eyes had bags under them and her hair resembled a rat's nest.

The pervious night she had barely slept. Her mind was too busy running a thousand miles a minute to comply with her physical exhaustion. And, to put the icing on the proverbial cake, Chelsea had used the last of Rose's Wavy Locks Hair Taming Potion. Without it, Rose had no control over her autonomous mane.

She knew she looked awful, but there was nothing she could do about it. All she wanted to do was crawl back into bed.

"You alright?" Nemo asked, as he took the seat across from Rose.

"Yeah, just really tired," Rose sighed. "I didn't really sleep last night."

"How come?" Nemo pressed.

"Too much on my mind," she answered. She ignored the eggs and bacon that had appeared on the plate in front of her.

"Scorpius?" Nemo raised his eyebrow.

"That and everything else. I'm swamped with work. Professor Taylor probably thinks I'm nuts. Everyone else thinks I'm a femi-nazi. And on top of that, I saw Goyle leering at me during dinner last night. Now that I've hexed him I'm legitimately afraid he and his cronies will do something to get back at me." Rose put her head in her hands. "Bloody pigs."

Nemo reached over and put his hand on her shoulder.

"Well, first off, Goyle and his friends are no match for Rose Weasley, let alone Albus, Lily, Hugo, and I combined. I don't think you realize it, but there are a lot of people at this school who are looking out for you," Nemo reassured her. "And, if Scorpius does have feelings for you, I'm sure he would never let them do anything to hurt you."

"But the thing is, I don't know if Scorpius has any feelings for me. I overheard him telling Goyle and Zabini that aside from sex, he has no use for me." Rose inhaled deeply. "Part of me wants to believe that he was lying to uphold his reputation, but since he hasn't spoken to me since we got back I'm more inclined to think that he actually meant it."

"I'm really sorry, Rose," Nemo tried to comfort his friend. Despite her earlier claims to Nemo that her relationship with Scorpius was purely physical, Nemo could tell that Rose's feelings stemmed deeper than that. "I was afraid something like this would happen."

"But, the weird thing was," Rose began. "When Professor Taylor asked him what happened, he actually defended me. If I meant nothing to him anymore, he wouldn't have gone against one of his best mates for me, would he?"

"I honestly don't know," Nemo responded, wishing he could be more helpful to her.

"Ugh, I hate my life!" Rose exclaimed. She pushed her uneaten breakfast aside, crossed her arms on the table, and buried her head.

"Rose, you're just going through a rough patch right now," Nemo explained. "I think you should just focus on your school work and not worry about what Scorpius or any of our other ding-bat classmates think."

"I know you're right," Rose agreed, lifting her head up slightly to look at her friend. "It's just hard."

"Yeah it is, but I have faith in you," Nemo smiled.

Just then a screech pierced the lazy morning air and a flurry of owls streamed into the Great Hall.

Rose went back to her hiding place in between her arms and the table, trying to ignore the commotion.

It wasn't until she felt something flat fall on her head that she paid any attention to her surroundings.

She lifted her head up slightly and an envelope slid off the side of her head and onto the table.

She opened it and began reading the letter.

"It's from Ms. Blackwater," she informed Nemo who looked at the letter with curiosity. "She wants me to meet her for lunch in Hogsmeade on Saturday."

"You're going to go, right?"

Rose sighed. "Yeah, I probably should. She might be weird, but she's a really good contact to have." She put her head in her hands once more. "I just don't even want to think about doing anything other than sleep right now."

"Well, I hate to burst your bubble, but we should get going to Potions," Nemo informed.

Rose groaned, picked up her book bag, and pushed herself up from the table.

On Saturday Rose found herself sitting alone in a booth towards the back of The Three Broomsticks waiting for a very late Victoria Blackwater.

She was about to call the waitress over so she could pay for her Butterbeer and leave, when a woman wearing bright pink robes and black rimmed glasses threw open the door to the pub. The clatter of the door hitting the wall as it opened captured the attention of everyone in the room.

Victoria swished over to Rose's table when she caught sight of her and took the opposite bench.

"Hello Rose, dear. It's lovely to see you again!" Victoria beamed as if Rose was an old friend instead of just her mentee.

"It's nice to see you again as well, Ms. Blackwater," Rose responded.

"Victoria," she corrected.

"Right. Sorry," Rose apologized.

They spent the first half hour casually chatting about their shared interests. It came up that Rose had finished reading Scamander's hippogriff book, and the two began to discuss it in depth.

Rose was surprised to learn how much she had in common with the older witch. Despite her eccentricities, she was an extremely knowledgeable and captivating witch.

"I have to tell you, Rose," Victoria began. "You remind me a great deal of myself when I was your age. Sure, I was a bit more introverted than you, but you have the same passion and drive I did at 16."

Although Rose had a hard time believing that Victoria had ever been shy, she thanked her for the compliment.

"Now drive is all well and good, but it's important to make sure you have a general idea of your destination," Victoria informed. "Do you have any idea what you want to do when it comes to magical creatures?"

Rose bit her lip for a moment mulling the question over. It was the same question Headmistress McGonagal had asked her a little less than a year ago. Over the time that had past between then and now Rose had been so wrapped up in schoolwork that she still hadn't really given it much more thought.

"Well, I've always been more bookish," Rose started, trying to verbally work things out. "But I also enjoy being around creatures immensely, so I think Magizoology would be a good fit for me…although, I've grown up in a household of law enforcers, so I do find the regulations side of things fascinating as well."

She knew she hadn't really answered the question, but it was all Rose could come up with.

"I think over the next year you should start taking more serious consideration as to what path you would like to go down," Victoria advised.

"I know; it's just that I've been so swamped with schoolwork I haven't had much time to sit down and really do the research into what either branch entails."

"Well, that's why I'm here," Victoria smiled. "What do you want to know?"

'Everything' was the first word that popped into Rose's head, although she knew that this would not be a good place to start. After some consideration she spoke once more.

"I guess I'd be interested in learning what path you took. What NEWT's did you take?"

Victoria's eyes narrowed. It seemed that she was not expecting a question about herself. Nonetheless she was happy to divulge her professional history.

"Let's see…I took Care of Magical Creatures, obviously. I also took Herbology. I ended up not needing it so much in my line of work, but it was still very useful. I also took Potions, Transfiguration, Earth Magic, and Ghoul Studies. GS was originally to sate my own curiosity, but it ended up being extremely helpful later on," she concluded. "What classes are you taking?"

"Transfiguration, Potions, Care of Magical Creatures, Herbology, and Defense Against the Dark Arts. I'm also taking Art with a concentration in Moving Photography."

"Very good!" Victoria praised. "All classes are very applicable to Magizoology. Even the photography could come in handy," she predicted. "Although you could still go either way."

"So, what did you do after you graduated?" Rose asked, taking a sip of her Butterbeer. She was happy to hear that the classes she had chosen were putting her on the right track, while still keeping her options open.

"Edwardus Lima invited me to assist him on an expedition to India to study a large colony of Occamy for a year."

"Isn't he the man who wrote The Monster Book of Monsters?" Rose inquired.

"The very same," Victoria confirmed before taking a bite of the french-fry she had been twirling as she spoke.

"Right after graduation? That's fantastic!" Rose was impressed.

"During which we discovered that a large medi-potion cooperation had hired poachers to kill the female Occami while they were pregnant."

"Oh wow, that's awful!" Rose exclaimed. Victoria nodded.

"Apparently the scales of a pregnant Occamy bare properties that can cure human postpartum depression, so it was a very tricky ethical dilemma," Victoria explained.

"When we brought it to the attention of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, we discovered what they were doing was still considered perfectly legal. It was then that I started become more involved with legislation, and eventually I was hired as a representative for the Beast division."

"What ended up happening with the Occami?" Rose asked.

"We discovered a safer way to harvest the scale that not only kept the mothers-to-be alive, but also decreased the overall human impact. The cooperation also agreed to work with the natives in the harvesting of scales so as to better improve the local economy."

"That's truly brilliant!" Rose beamed. She had always found instances where humans were able to work with and not against the animal kingdom.

"So how did you end up in the being division?" Rose pressed, curious to learn more about the witch's background.

"I believe that's a story for some other day," Victoria dismissed Rose's question. The younger witch noticed a sudden change in her mentor's behavior. Her eyes darted quickly from Rose to somewhere just above her head and she began to chew on her left thumb nail.

There was a moment of strained silence before Victoria spoke again.

"You know, although I think I went about my education very well, the one thing I do regret is not learning to become an animagus sooner," she confessed.

"You're an animagus?" Rose asked in amazement.

Victoria nodded.

Rose remembered her Uncle Harry mentioning that both his father and godfather had been animagi, but people with the ability were still few and far between. Although Rose had little reason to doubt otherwise, she was now convinced that Victoria Blackwater was an extremely skilled witch.

"If you don't mind me asking, what form?"

"A duck," Victoria beamed proudly. "It was my husband's patronus as well."

"Why do you wish you had learned how to transform sooner?" Rose asked, curious.

"It gives you a completely different perspective on life. I would also argue that it helps you to better understand the animals we study," Victoria explained. "If you're interested, I could train you," she offered.

Although the idea of being an animagus did appeal to Rose, from the little she knew about them she did know that it was a long a arduous process to become one. She had no idea how she could fit such intense training in between her already intense amount of schoolwork. Not to mention she wouldn't even be able to start until she was of age, which wouldn't be until August.

"I'm only 16," Rose replied, hoping that this restriction would at least void off any serious conversation about it until she was of age.

"Well, we can always start now. As long as we don't get into the really difficult part of process until you're 17 we won't get in trouble," she informed.

"Ms. Blackwater—" Rose began, but stopped herself when she received a look of disappointment from her mentor. "Victoria, although I think being an animagus would be brilliant, I really need to focus on my study's right now," she insisted.

Victoria, who could see Rose's lack of enthusiasm on the subject decided not to press the subject further. "Alright, I understand. You need to have your heart invested in this, and I can see that you haven't reached that point yet. Just know that I'm here if you ever change your mind."

"Thank you for understanding," Rose smiled.

"Now, if I'm to be a proper mentor to you, Rose, I think that we should start meeting on a regular basis. How does that sound to you?"

Rose nodded her head enthusiastically. Despite her lack of interest in animagi, she did find the witch fascinating and, to some extent, helpful.

"Now, I know you're busy with classes, and Merlin knows I'm swamped over at the Ministry, so I think maybe twice a month until the end of the school year would be sufficient," she offered. "We can figure out a more frequent schedule for the summertime when it gets closer."

Rose agreed, and they spent the rest of their time together planning which weekends would work best. They planned to meet again in three weeks time, after Rose was finished with midterm exams. In the mean time, they agreed to correspond by owl, and Victoria promised to send Rose the title of a few books she wanted the young witch to try and read before their next meeting.

When the two witches parted ways, Rose was in the best mood she had been in since returning from the holidays. It finally seemed liked something in her life was going right. Instead of heading straight back to the castle, Rose made a detour to the boutique that Lily had taken her to before break.

The bell above the door chimed cheerily as Rose entered the store. The sales girl turned her attention from the inventory she was conducting to Rose. It was the same girl who had been there during her visit with Lily.

"Well, hello again," the girl beamed. "I would tell you that the dress you wanted is gone, but I think you already know that," she winked.

Rose's eyes widened and her heart sunk into her stomach.

"Yes, Juliet," she teased, a devilish smile creeping across her face. "I know all about you and Romeo."

_**A/N: Hello my dear readers! Just wanted to chime in and say hello! **_

_**To the people who started reading this story prior to this Thursday, I have edited the first chapter (originally this story had been a one-shot that, after much begging from reviewers, I extended. I realized that the tone of the first chapter was significantly different from how the rest of the story has developed, so I finally went back and cleaned this up). **_

_**Aside from that, I hope to get the next chapter up within the next week or so. I've been working really hard on this story since I've gotten home from college and I'm excited for where it's going. Trust me, it will get darker. **_

_**Please, if you have any constructive criticism, suggestions, or praise, review! Your reviews remind me that my hard work isn't just getting lost in cyberspace. And as always, thank you for your support! :D**_


	13. Girl Talk

All of the sudden, Rose's pulse quickened, she felt her face become much warmer than room temperature, and her legs felt like rubber.

Seeing that Rose was on the verge of a heart attack the girl quickly added "Don't worry, your secret is safe with me."

The girl's reassurance did little to assuage Rose's quickening pulse.

"My name's Helena. Helena Nott," she introduced herself, holding her hand out to Rose.

Rose regarded her hand suspiciously. Wasn't this the 7th year that liked Scorpius?

Finally, she decided it was best to be polite, and returned gesture. "I'm Rose Weasley," she stated even though she had a feeling that the witch knew this already.

Despite always chiding her younger cousin when she became catty, Rose couldn't help but size Helena up.

The girl was only a few inches shorter than Rose, but she noted part of her height was attributed to fairly steep black heels. Helena was very skinny, but she still managed to have a lovely hourglass figure. She wore a black long sleeve fitted scoop neck top and skinny jeans. Her long sleek black hair, which had peacock blue tips, was pulled up with a large hair clip giving her the appearance of an exotic bird. She had a petit mouth and her long lashes exaggerated her wide green eyes. Scorpius' description of her, although vulgar, wasn't too far off the mark. Rose admitted she found herself attracted to this elegant girl who carried an air of mystery around her.

Rose pulled herself from her close examination of Helena and decided to address the elephant in the room. "So…how exactly do you know about Scorpius and I?"

"Well, I guess it's only fitting that I divulge my own secret to you. Scorpius and I are very close friends. We basically grew up together. He tells me everything."

Rose found herself peeved that Scorpius had told this girl about their…whatever it was, but then she reminded herself that she had done the same with Nemo.

"Why is your friendship a secret?" Rose asked.

"You know Scorpius. He likes to uphold a manly façade, and, unfortunately, in the pureblood world having a female best friend is the equivalent of having a small penis," Helena shrugged.

"Oh." Rose wasn't quite sure how to react to this information, although it didn't surprise her in the slightest.

The silence between the two witches was interrupted by a gaggle of high-pitched voices. They looked over to the window to see a group of three younger Hogwarts girls pointing and chattering about the dresses on display there.

"Hold on a second," Helena addressed Rose. She reached into her pocket, drew out her long black wand and flicked it, causing the open sign to flip around right as the girls began to trudge up the few steps to the shop. They groaned in disappointment at the sight of the bold black letters reading "CLOSED" and turned around.

"They aren't going to buy anything, plus I'm way overdo for my lunch break anyways," Helena explained. She then turned around and began to walk towards the backroom. When she realized Rose wasn't following, she spun towards her once more and beckoned her to come. "I don't bite," she laughed.

Rose was surprised to see that the backroom was quite inviting. There was a small kitchenette against the left wall and a comfy lime green couch with a large wooden coffee table nearby. The clock hanging over the couch chimed four o'clock.

"Ooh! It's tea time," Helena enthused as she headed over to the stove and put the medium sized stainless steel teakettle on the gas burner. With a flick of her wand she produce a blue flame, and within seconds the kettle began to whistle.

Without asking Rose if she cared for any, Helena poured the hot water into two cups. She then opened up the overhead cabinet where Rose could see a variety of teas were stored.

"Do want English Breakfast, Chamomile, Green, Jasmine, or Raspberry?" she asked.

"Raspberry sounds good," Rose answered although she wasn't a big tea drinker. Despite the fact that her mother was a stickler for tradition, the event of afternoon tea was almost non-existent in the Weasley household. Hermione claimed that they had far better things to do in the afternoon than sit around drinking hot beverages. Instead Rose favored hot coco.

"Great choice! Raspberry's my favorite," Helena smiled. "Cream and sugar?"

"Sugar, thanks," Rose answered.

When Helena had finished preparing their drinks she motioned for Rose to sit on the couch. She did so, and Helena soon took a seat next to her. Helena handed Rose her cup, and then took a large sip from her own.

"Ah," she sighed. "I adore afternoon tea."

Rose took a small sip from her cup. Surprisingly, she didn't find it bland and bitter like she normally did. It was actually rather good. She took a larger sip before putting her cup down.

Although Rose still reserved some misgivings towards the witch, her muscles became less tense.

"Now, Scorpius would murder me if he knew that I was speaking with you, but honestly he has been the biggest prat in the history of prats lately. I thought it was only fair for me to talk to you." Helena shook her head in disappointment at her friend. "All I want is for him to be happy, and he's doing everything in his power as of late to deny himself that. Which is only made worse by the fact that he's dragging you down with him!" she exclaimed.

"So, you don't like him? Romantically, I mean," Rose asked, tentative.

"Merlin, No! Is that what you thought?" Helena looked as if she might jump out of her chair.

"It's just I overheard Goyle say—"

"The one thing you need to know about George Goyle," she said his name with an acidic edge to her voice, "Is that since his head is as thick as his stomach, he thinks with his prick. Don't ever listen to a word that comes out of that boy's mouth."

Helena put her glass down and straightened her shirt before addressing Rose once more.

"Scorpius is like a brother to me, and despite what our parents may want, there is no way in hell I would ever date, shag, or otherwise engage in any form of non-platonic behavior with him."

"What your parents may want?"

"Our fathers are the best of friends. If it were up to them Scorpius and I would already be engaged. But thankfully, arranged marriages have been outlawed," Helena explained. "And trust me, that is the only reason why they haven't forced us together already." She pushed her black bangs to the right in a gesture of frustration.

She picked up her cup once more and took another long sip before continuing.

"Now, I know that you don't know me very well, but I want us to be able to talk to each other as friends, and hopefully at some point we can become just that," she smiled.

"Thanks, that means a lot," Rose smiled back. Although she was still fairly uncomfortable with the situation, she was happy to know that one of Scorpius' friends was on her side, let alone even being cordial towards her.

"You have to understand, since Scorpius has a tendency towards this whole 'I am a man and feelings are below me' complex, I don't know too much about your relationship with him. But I think he would vouch for me when I say in some cases I know him better than even he does." She took another sip before continuing. "And one thing I do know is that he was always happy after he'd had a late night excursion with you. When I saw him the morning after he stole you away to the prefects bathroom, he had this goofy grin on his face," she laughed at the memory. "It's the happiest I've seen him in years…as cliché as that sounds it's true."

Rose's heart seemed to jolt in response to Helena's words. However, the feeling was not uncomfortable. Rose's eyes sparkled and the corners of her mouth edged up.

"So, you were the prefect who owed him a favor I take it," Rose deduced.

"Yes," she answered before continuing. "When he came back from break his mood did a complete one eighty. Even when he told me about the fight you guys had before holiday, he wasn't this bad. I have no idea what happened. He won't even hint at anything, and normally he tells me everything. That's where you come in," Helena looked Rose directly in the eye. From her glance she knew that Helena needed Rose's full and undivided attention.

"Like I said, I don't know what it is about you, but you seem to bring out the best in him." She let out a long sigh. "All I want is for him to be happy again, and I figure since I've exhausted my helpfulness, you might be the person he needs right now."

It was Rose's turn to sigh. "I don't even think he's interested in me anymore though."

"I know he's been ignoring you completely as of late, but he definitely has not lost interest in you. If anything, it's the complete opposite it," Helena assured. "Even if he won't admit it to himself, let alone anyone else."

This news brought a smile to Rose's face. Maybe there was still hope.

"Alright, all do what I can," Rose agreed to help. After the episode with him in the hallway, she was apprehensive, but she knew she wouldn't be able to forget him so easily.

"Fantastic!" Helena beamed. She reached her arms around Rose and pulled her into a hug. Although Rose was caught off guard by the gesture, she wrapped her arms around Helena as well.

"Now, we need to find a way to get the two of you alone together, and it'll have to be some sort of ambush, since his stubbornness would never allow him to willingly see you…"

"I was planning on sneaking into the Malfoy's ball. I figured I could slip away into his room and when he came in to find me there, he'd have to at least say something to me," Rose divulged.

"That's brilliant!" Helena exclaimed. "I mean he did buy you that dress after all. It's only fitting that you wear it to his party," she rationalized; the same devilish grin from earlier crept across her face. "All we need is a mask, and _coincidently_, I accidently order myself two black masks, one of which would match your dress perfectly," she stated as she grabbed the store's catalog from the coffee table and began to place an order for Rose's mask.

Rose couldn't help but giggle.

The two girls proceeded to animatedly map out the rest of their plan. When they had finally worked out all the minor details, they said goodbye and promised to keep in touch with each other over the next couple of days.

"Scorpius better watch out," Helena warned as she walked towards the door to let Rose out. "I predict that you and I are going to make a splendid team."

_**A/N: Well, turned out "in a week or so" ended up being more like a day…I was just really eager to write this chapter. When I originally mapped out this story, I wasn't sure if Helena's character would fit in, but I'm really glad I found a way to introduce her. Writing her is a lot of fun, and I'm thinking of giving her a larger role in the story, what do you guys think? **_

_**Also, I read over the last chapter and found it was very choppy with some repetitive word choice…sorry about that. I really should be better at enforcing the whole "No posting when ridiculously tired" rule for myself. I'll probably go back and fix that soon. **_

_**Anyways…The eagerly anticipated ball chapter is fast approaching, so stay tuned. As always if you have any constructive criticism, suggestions, or praise, please review. I love hearing your feedback! Seriously, my stats on this story are starting to increase, and it makes me very happy. Thank you all for your support! **_


	14. Masked

_**Hello Dear Readers! Here it is the long awaited ball chapter. I hope you enjoy!**_

During the next month Rose's schoolwork ebbed and flowed at a more regular pace, only picking up again when midterms approached. She didn't mind though. Sure the work was difficult and it stressed her out to no end, but there was still something about tackling a task and accomplishing it that gave Rose an overwhelming feeling of self-satisfaction. She liked being busy, and she had grown to be almost thankful for Scorpius' cold shoulder. There was no way she would have been able to juggle schoolwork, a social life, and sleep (not to mention the extra reading assigned to her by Ms. Blackwater) with him stealing her away in the night. However, she still found her eyes wandering to him whenever he was within her visual range, searching his face hoping for a moment when their eyes would lock. She was almost thankful they didn't, almost, but not quite.

On a Friday in mid March, Rose sat in the castle's art studio attempting to focus on critique. Most of the time she would anxiously wait for the class to address her work on the wall, but that day her mind was focused on other things. In just one hour she would rush downstairs to her dorm in order to get pampered and pretty for the ball that night. Then, at seven o'clock, she would meet Lysander Scamander, her escort, on the steps just outside the castle's main entrance.

After the grueling hour passed, Professor Blanche dismissed the class as he always did claiming, "You all need to push the envelope more! I expect better next time!"

Rose unpinned her picture from the wall so quickly she almost tore the silver gelatin print that had taken her ages to develop. She swore at herself for not being more careful before dashing out of the classroom and down the hall.

As she bolted down the hallway, she attempted to slip all of her materials into her knapsack. She had finally gotten everything to slide in and was about to look up when she slammed into another body moving just as fast as she was. Her bag and all the papers she had just battled to get in it scattered across the hallway along with those belonging to the other student.

She looked up to see who was the poor unfortunate soul victimized by her haste, only to see the piercing gray eyes of a certain Slytherin boy.

"Scorpius," she exhaled, finding herself painfully frozen. All she could focus on was how intriguing his hair looked as it caught the crimson light of the setting sun.

His eyes darted from their far off lost gaze to Rose's expectant blue orbs.

"S-sorry," he stammered. He leaned down to pick up their things, pushing them into two haphazard piles. His movements reminded her of a skittish field mouse, far from his normal majestic and confident gait. He stuffed one of the piles into his messenger bag.

He picked up the other pile and shoved it into her hands before running off down the hallway.

Rose stood there dumbfounded for a moment. That was the first time Scorpius had acknowledged her existence in almost three months. She didn't know what she expected their first encounter in such a long time to entail, but it definitely was not what had just transpired.

She walked over to a nearby window ledge and began to reorganize her papers. It was then that she realized something was missing. She rifled around her empty knapsack frantically before searching through her folders once more. As she felt her way through numerous pages of rough parchment, her fingers came across a smooth glossy surface. Her body began to relax once more, until she saw that it was not the print that had taken her six hours of shooting and another exurbanite amount of time to enchant and develop. Instead it was presumably a page from a large calendar with the words MARCH printed in bold across the top. Rose noted astrological symbols adorning the upper right hand corner of each day, along with the phases of the moon occupying the lower left. Someone had drawn a large red box around the phase for that day, March 18th.

"Shit!" she swore louder than she had intended, drawing unwanted glances from the surrounding students. Scorpius must have accidently swapped the two similarly textured papers. Professor Blanche may have claimed her photo was trite and unworthy of her portfolio, but she was still fond of the image and was planning on giving it to her father as a belated birthday present.

Well, at least now she would have a more legitimate reason to speak with Scorpius tonight.

When Rose entered her dorm she was happy to find her roommates were not there. The last thing she needed to do was explain to them why she was getting dressed up on the same night as the Malfoy's ball. It wasn't that she didn't already have an excuse planned already; she just didn't like lying to more people then was necessary. That was why neither her family nor Nemo knew that she wasn't going to be at the castle that night. She decided it would be best to keep her friend in the dark until after the party, knowing full well that he would not approve. If they asked, Victoria invited her to a formal Ministry dinner in order for her to start networking.

She took a quick shower before getting dressed. Still wrapped in a towel she pulled out her suitcase from under the bed. She dug through her clothing to the bottom of the trunk where her underwear was safely hidden. She knew exactly what she was going to wear: her lacy black strapless bra with the matching thong. Sure it seemed like her choice was based on what she thought would happen between her and Scorpius that night, but she convinced herself that the sole reason she made this selection of lingerie was for her own self empowerment. Knowing that she had sexy underwear on made her feel sexy and confident. It didn't matter who, if anyone else, saw what she had on underneath her dress.

After slipping into her underwear, she grabbed a potion bottle and her makeup bag out of her suitcase before heading back into the bathroom. Rose and Helena decided that it would be a good idea for her to temporarily dye her hair a different color. Not many people at Hogwarts aside from the Weasley-Potters had red hair, and they both agreed she would definitely stand out.

Rose worked the potion into her hair and within a matter of seconds, her long wavy auburn tresses transformed into straight dirty blonde locks. She proceed to pull the front half of her new hair back with the ornate emerald green fleur-de-lis clip; the one Aunt Fleur had gifted her for her 16th birthday. Surprisingly, Rose found that the new do was very flattering to her facial features and made her electric blue eyes stand out even more. Even so, she missed her wavy red mane and she was thankful the potion would only last six to seven hours.

She proceeded to dust her eyelids with a rusty brown eye shadow before applying black eyeliner, thick line on the top, thin line on the bottom. She then put a dash of pink on her cheeks and finished her look with light red lip-gloss.

Rose didn't normally wear make up aside from the occasional eyeliner when she was feeling particularly girly, but she found the process fun and exciting.

When she was satisfied with her hair and make up, she went back into her room and shimmied into her dress. Next she carefully slipped the black half-mask Helena had gotten for her over her eyes, taking care not to muss her hair. She then took up her hazel wand and slipped it, along with her make up, inside her black sequined handbag before throwing a light black shawl over her shoulders and heading out the door.

It was seven o'clock when she met Lysander just outside the castle doors. He was adorned in black dress robes with a green tie that she was sure Helena had forced him to wear.

Although her parents had always been fond of Lysander's mother, none of the Weasley children had gotten along with the Scamander twins. Lorcan, a Ravenclaw, was an intellectual but had hermit-like tendencies, and Lysander, the oddball of the family, was concerned much more with status and wealth then mental growth and friendship. The only reason he had agreed to take Rose to the masquerade was because Helena promised to get him a job at her father's firm once they graduated. Rose also figured that he wanted to get on Rose's good side because the Weasley-Potters were one of the most influential clans in the wizarding world.

"Good evening, Rose," Lysander greeted, taking her hand and raising it up to his lips. The gesture reminded her of Scorpius, but didn't affect the same adrenaline rush. She knew Lysander was just tying to be a gentleman, but she couldn't forget the ridiculous and degrading historical implications of his actions. She inadvertently snatched her hand away.

"Let's get this show on the road," she commanded with more malice than she had intended. Now that she was with Lysander, her nerves were kicking into high gear; her stomach knotted into complicated patterns. If they didn't leave soon, she would call the whole thing off.

Fortunately, Lysander seemed to get the message without appearing to be offended. They headed down the path to the castle gates, and once the crossed the magical threshold, Rose took Lysander's arm as they apperated to Malfoy Manor.

"Wow," was the first word Rose uttered when she and Lysander touched ground once more. The two were standing in front of a beautiful and imposing wrought iron gate. Its arms had been swung open in welcome to the night's guests, but the effect was more intimidating than warm. Rose's eyes followed the gravel pathway to the large white mansion doors that a convoy of bedazzled and masked guests were filing through.

Despite the money that Rose's parents had incurred from their famed endeavors in the wizarding world, the Weasley's were of the humble and modest variety. Rose had never experienced such a grand display of wealth and prosperity.

"Here we are, Malfoy Manor," Lysander sneered.

"I knew the Malfoy's were rich, but this is ridiculous," Rose commented.

"Yeah. Funny how the most hated family in the wizarding world is still sitting pretty," Lysander commented; his eyes narrowed. Rose could pick up on the envy in his voice. "Well, we're here now, so let's do this thing. Who are you supposed to be again?"

"Belle Sang-Bleu. I'm eh Beauxbatons girl," Rose confidently stated in a pseudo-French accent, another product of her planning with Helena.

"Beautiful Blue-Blood? That's the name you choose?" Lysander raised an eyebrow.

"Hey, I figured if I'm going to take on a fake personality, I might as well have fun with it," Rose shrugged.

"Well, I hope for your sake that not very many people at the party speak French."

Lysander held out his elbow for Rose, and she linked her arm around his before the couple joined the throng of people heading towards the house.

When it finally came Rose's and Lysander's turn to be scrutinized by the burly butler who guarded over the guest list, Rose's nerves were on edge. It wasn't until the butler's dark and judging eyes scanned over Rose's body that she realized how dire the consequences could be if her charade was discovered. Rose began to pick apart all the hideously apparent flaws in her "perfect" plan, knowing that Murphy's Law was almost always infallible. 'What if he knows I'm not who I say I am? What if he's French and realizes I'm faking it? The Malfoys know they have many enemies; they must have taken extra magical measure to monitor guests…and party crashers.'

"Lysander Scamander," Lysander informed the beady-eyed man. "And this is my plus one," he gestured to Rose.

"Name," the butler intoned.

"Belle Sang-Bleu," Rose stated in her accent, pulling off a convincing smile despite her racing heart.

The butler wrote her name down in his book. His face contorted in confusion and Rose's heart stopped. He then muttered, "Must be a French thing," and gestured to the door, allowing the couple entrance.

Once Rose crossed the threshold she sighed in relief, only to remind herself that she could still be discovered at any minute. She had just gotten past the first obstacle, but she wasn't in the clear yet.

Lysander led Rose over to the right where the banquet tables were. Laid before them on a velvet maroon tablecloth was a lavish array of cheeses, meats, vegetables, and other finger foods that, although unidentifiable to Rose, appeared extremely appetizing.

As Lysander began to load up his plate, Rose took the chance to absorb her surroundings.

It was as if she had stepped right into one of the Victorian era "chick flicks" that her mother loved and her father couldn't stand. The main foyer was a large airy room with a high stained glass ceiling. A large glass chandelier that suspended free of any support cast a warm light over the entire room. Areas that would have been cast in shadow were lighted by small gold candelabras hanging on the dark grey stonewalls. Right across from the main entrance was the main focal point of the room: a grandiose staircase that, after reaching the first landing, branched off in two directions. In the very center of the staircase was a towering portrait of the Malfoy family that reminded Rose of the royal portraits she had seen when her Aunt Fleur took her to Versailles. An orchestral band was positioned to the left of the staircase. Small tables surrounded by petite chairs clothed in green and silver dotted the edges of room. The guests aimlessly wandered around the room, greeting old friends, introducing themselves to new people, and most importantly, upholding their reputations. The men mainly wore black dress robes with colored accents, while the women adorned extravagant dresses. It seemed they had all favored black or deep and richer shades of color over pastels and white. One aspect of dress that both the men and women had in common was the elaborate detail of their fantastical masks. It was all so incredibly romantic.

She searched the crowd for the shock of white hair and cold gray eyes that was Scorpius Malfoy, but the only man of that description she found was a man her parent's age: Mr. Malfoy. Although a woman, whom Rose presumed to be Mrs. Malfoy, was close to her husband's side, their son was nowhere in sight.

"Merde," Rose muttered under her breath.

"Can't find him?" Lysander, who was now standing at Rose's side with a plate in hand, asked.

"No," Rose sighed.

"Well, the night is still young. Maybe he's in the sitting room," Lysander announced. He hooked his arm around Rose's and led her into an adjoining room. There was an immense walk-in fireplace against the far wall. Various expensive looking knick-knacks and family pictures inhabited the mantle. There were two large black leather sofas facing each other, with a stocky cherry coffee table between them. This appeared to be the room where all the younger guests had retreated.

"Lysander! You made it!" Nicholas Zabini greeted, his arm extended.

The boys high-fived. Zabini then turned his attention to Rose. She held her breath. Would he recognize her?

"Whose the babe?" he asked his eye trailing up and down her body.

Rose wanted to slap him, but she couldn't blow her cover. Instead she mustered all her power to beam at him flirtatiously. "Je m'appelle Belle," she began in her phony accent. "I attend Beauxbatons. You've 'eard of it, no?"

"Of course," Zabini answered shooting her a crooked toothy grin that made Rose internally cringe. "I'm Nicholas Zabini. My father owns Chastity's Sin. You've heard of it, no?" he teased.

How could she forget the chain of witches' lingerie stores? She had received a catalog from them a year ago, which she promptly threw away. A month later she found it peeking out of her brother's mattress whilst searching for her stolen wand. She had not known that Nicholas' father was the owner of this store, but this newfound information made him even more disgusting in her eyes.

"Ah, oui. I adore shopping there!" she smiled, despite her gut feeling that when Nicholas went to bed that night he would be fantasizing about her in his father's underwear. She inwardly shuddered at the thought before trilling "Enchanté." She held out her hand to shake his. Instead Nicholas lifted it to his lips and planted a sloppy wet kiss.

"Hey back off," Lysander warned, gripping Rose's arm tighter. Whether he had sensed Rose's distress or didn't appreciate Nicholas touching his 'goods,' Rose did not know. She hoped it was the former, but was thankful nonetheless.

"I see you have a new slag," a girl with a high pitched nasally voice who had been sitting next to Nicholas chimed in.

The girl stood up and took a step towards them. Based on the apparent difficulty she had in performing this simple task and the bottle of fire whiskey clutched in her manicured hand, Rose deduced that the girl was plastered…and the night was still young.

"Hello Paxton," Lysander greeted, although he sounded less than pleased to see her.

"Isn't that nice. You found yourself a big titted blonde bint," she squawked.

It took all of Rose's power to keep her mouth from dropping. She wanted to hex this girl half way to Thursday, but instead took a deep breath to calm herself. She wasn't sure how to react, so she decided to play dumb.

"Excusez-moi?" Rose asked in an earnest voice.

"Don't you dare insult Belle like that," Lysander came to Rose's defense. "At least she knows the difference between blow dry and blow job."

Although it wasn't the best defense of honor in the world, Rose still chuckled. Paxton glared.

"So how did you two become acquainted?" Paxton asked accentuating the last word. "The brothel house?"

Now it was Rose's turns to talk. She could play this game as well.

"Both of our families vacationed in ze Alps during ze 'olidays. We shared in one magnificent night of passionate lovemaking. He moves me more deeply than any other man," Rose's alias confessed. 'Merlin, this is so degrading,' she thought to herself.

Paxton looked at her suspiciously.

"It seems a night with 'im is exactly what you need to loosen your tight—what do you English call it? Twat?" Rose commented, a smile, the first genuine one of the night, beaming across her face.

Paxton's mouth dropped as she let out a "uh!" of disbelief. Lysander practically doubled over in laughter, while Nicholas stood there helplessly, unsure whether he should laugh or try to comfort his new girlfriend.

Paxton glared at Rose with intense hatred before she stormed out of the room drunkenly, with Zabini trailing behind her.

As soon as Paxton and Nicholas left, Helena entered. Rose felt her teeth unclench at the sight of a familiar face.

"Lysander!" she beamed. "I'm so glad you came!" She strode over and hugged him, Rose could see that Lysander was perplexed by her behavior. "And who is this?" she turned to Rose, although from the glint in her eye she had already answered her own question.

"My name iz Belle," Rose introduced her alias.

"Enchante," Belle smiled.

"Now, where iz zis Scorpius you mentioned?" Rose turned to Lysander, hoping that maybe Helena could answer the question.

Lysander shrugged his shoulder as Rose had expected, but Helena piped up.

"I haven't seen him at all tonight actually," she answered, her face riddled with worry at the mention of her friend.

"Probably wants to piss off his old man," Lysander laughed. Helena gave him a warning glance.

'Well this is perfect!' Rose thought to herself.

"Oh, tres mal. I very much wanted to meet 'im," Rose commented, although she shared a genuine concerned look with Helena.

Lysander, Rose, and Helena joined the other teenagers on the couches. Rose pretended to listen intently to their banter, but focused all of her attention to the outer room in hopes of seeing Scorpius. It was getting late, and the older guests were starting to leave.

"'elena, could you escort me to la toilette?" Rose leaned into her friend.

"Of course, darling," Helena answered.

Helena and Rose ducked down a fairly abandoned hallway and into a large but unoccupied bathroom. When Rose was sure they were alone she began.

"I need to find Scorpius," Rose insisted, ditching her fake accent.

"I know, I know," Helena agreed. "I have no idea where he is, he's supposed to be here."

"Wherever he is, he'll most likely come home tonight, right?" Rose asked, trepidation in her voice.

"I-I guess so. He left the Slytherin dorms before I did, so I don't think he's at the castle," Helena explained. "Merlin, Morgan, and Maeve, why must he make things so difficult!" she exclaimed, although beneath her anger, Rose could see she was worried.

"Maybe I should just wait in his room tonight then?" Rose suggested.

"What will you do if he doesn't come? You're not of age, it isn't like you can apperate back to Hogwarts," she countered.

"The Malfoy's are hooked up to the Flo Network, right? I can just sneak down to the fireplace in the main hall and go to the Hogs Head. I can walk back to Hogwarts from there," she insisted.

"Alright, if you're sure about this…" Helena looked apprehensive, but she seemed to trust Rose.

Rose nodded.

"Ok, come with me," Helena urged.

They made their way through a labyrinth of hallways and staircases, before they reached a door at the end of a hallway on the top floor of the house. Rose knocked on the door. No answer. She slowly opened it, to find it lit solely by the full moon that cascaded through the large window across from the door. It revealed that the room was empty.

"Ok, this is where I leave. If I'm gone for too long my father will send out a search party," Helena explained.

Rose nodded and with that Helena rushed back the way they had came,

Rose cursed her luck before entering the room, closing the door behind her. Her eyes scanned the room. Like the rest of the house it was huge. The bed was king sized with a white duvet. Aside from the bed it was sparsely furnished. The only other pieces being a chunky dresser, two identical nightstands, and a desk; all carved from the same dark wood.

Rose made her way over to the bed, and sat down. From where she was sitting she could see three doors. One was the door she had emerged from, the one to the right of the bed presumably the bathroom, and the one across from the bed near the dresser was most likely the closest.

"Master Malfoy," came a shy high-pitched voice followed by a knock on the door to the hallway.

'Shit!' Rose thought. She looked around quickly for a place to hide. "The closest!" she whispered under her breath.

She quickly, but silently, dashed to the door. Carefully opening it, she stepped inside and closed the door, just as she heard the other door open.

A small sliver of light peeking through the space between the door and the floor alerted Rose that the person who had entered the room had lighted the candles. Light also spilled through the keyhole in the door. Rose knelt down and looked through. Despite her limited range of sight, Rose was able to see a small pale creature moving around the room. It was a house elf come to ready her master's room for bed.

Rose watched for a while before an overwhelming exhaustion washed over her. She didn't understand why she was tired all of the sudden, but regardless she moved from her position at the keyhole to lean up against the back wall of the closet, which was fairly deep.

The scent of lavender filled her nostrils, and Rose took off her mask in welcome to the soothing smell. She then saw that the lights in the room had been extinguished, and before she could stop herself, she was asleep.

_**A/N: Ok, I know, I know, Scorpius didn't make the apperance you had expected, but I promise you he has a pretty large role in the next chapter. I will post it within the next day or so, so stay tuned. As a little teaser I figured I'd let you know that the next chapter is inspired by the song **__**Play With Fire by The Birthday Massacre**__**. I hope that will be enough to sate your curiosity until I post the next chapter. As always, please review! I thank all of you for your support! **_


	15. Wounds

"O…oh Merlin, Scorpius! Yes! Yes! Yes! Scooorpiuuuussss! Oh Scor."

"What the bloody hell? Rose!"

Rose's eyes flew open. The first thing she saw was not a face, but a crotch: a man's crotch. She definitely knew it belonged to a man. The next thing she saw was Scorpius' face, wide eyed and blushing a pale red. Then she felt the cause of his crimson cheeks. The skit of her dress was bunched up far above her hips and her hand was in a very…compromising position.

Rose quickly removed her hand, pulled down her skirt, and sat up on her knees only to come face to face with Scorpius' second cause for embarrassment.

She quickly ducked underneath his arm and crawled out of the closet. She stood up and turned to face him.

"Um…" Scorpius began, shocked by the whole situation. He kept his body facing the closet, but turned his head slightly towards Rose. "I-I need to take care of something…urgent," he stammered. "But when I get back you're going to tell me what exactly you were do—" Scorpius paused looking for a better choice of words, seeing as it was pretty apparent to both of them what she had been doing. "Why you were in my closet," he finished and dashed into the bathroom.

Several minutes later, Scorpius emerged.

They stood there looking dumbfounded at one another, waiting for the other to speak.

"Well that was fast," Rose joked, attempting to make light of an extremely awkward situation.

"Ha. Ha." Scorpius responded. "So are you just going to make fun of me, or are you going to explain why the hell you were in my closet?" he pressed, crossing his arms. He was still in nothing but a towel, which made the gesture comical.

"Because you haven't spoken to me in over two months," Rose answered mimicking Scorpius posture by crossing her arms as well. "You also stole my art homework and I want it back."

"And you thought that gave you clearance to waltz right into my bedroom uninvited and hide in my closet?" he asked, raising his eyebrow.

"Yes," Rose answered despite realizing how ridiculous she must sound.

"You're absolutely loony, you know that Rose?" Scorpius sighed confirming her judgment.

"Well if you didn't want me to take drastic measures to get your attention, you shouldn't have ignored me in the first place," Rose countered, her own stubbornness edging her on.

"Your logic is extremely backwards" Scorpius sighed. He opened his mouth to speak again, but closed it. Although Rose's inherent need to talk to Scorpius touched him, he was afraid of her reasoning for coming here. Whatever it was, this was not going to be fun, and it sure as hell was not going to be easy.

There was a pause. Neither one of them knew what to say next. Rose could see that Scorpius was calculating something in his mind and Rose wished she knew how to perform Legitiamancy.

Finally deciding on what to say, Scorpius spoke once more, bitterness dripping from his voice. "You're supposed to hate me. 80% of you thinks that I'm a git, remember? You should be happy I haven't spoken to you."

Rose took a deep breath trying to calm herself. 'Why does this have to be so complicated?' she thought.

"I did a lot of thinking over break," Rose began, choosing her words carefully. She didn't want to fight with him. She wanted to make this work. "I wanted to give you a second chance…give us a second chance."

"Did you ever think that maybe I didn't want a second chance?" Scorpius spat. He didn't want to do this, but he had to.

"Then why did you send me the dress? Why did you call me—" Rose hesitated. The gravity of her reason for coming finally catching up with her. She could feel an onslaught of tears threatening to break lose."'Your Rose'"

"I…I was stupid. I wasn't thinking," Scorpius answered half heartily. He turned his attention to the clock on his bedside table. He was avoiding Rose's pleading gaze.

It was this small gesture that allowed Rose's eyes to land on a large semi-circular scar that ripped into Scorpius' right shoulder: a scar that hadn't been there when he had stolen her away to swim in the prefect's bathroom.

Her mind briefly drifted to that night and Rose relived the experience of their first kiss in her head. The memory was bittersweet and she forced her brain back into reality.

As if the sight of the scar had removed a fog from Rose's eyes, she now saw that Scorpius' torso and arms were covered in fresh scrapes and nasty bruises. He had dark bags under his eyes and his whole body screamed of exhaustion.

"Merlin, Scorpius!" she exclaimed rushing over to him to examine the damage. "What happened to you?"

In that moment it didn't matter how they felt about each other; the mother hen inside of her had pushed Rose's conscious out of the way. She gently gripped his right arm and led him the short distance to the bed, before compelling him to sit next to her.

"I'm fine, Rose. It's nothing," Scorpius attempted to dismiss the question.

"Bollocks!" Rose exclaimed. She grabbed his arm and gently pulled it toward her to get a better look. After a thorough investigation, she repeated the process with his other arm. She saw that the wounds had been cleaned, but aside from that, they were untreated. "We should take you to the hospital," Rose stated. She knew deep down it was an overkill statement, but she didn't know what else to do.

"No, _we_ don't have to do anything. Seriously, Rose. Don't worry about it." Scorpius grabbed her wrist with his other hand and set it down on her lap. The familiar electric spark of attraction surged from the place where he had touched her. Her eyes met his and she saw pain there amidst the gray…not just pain, but agony. Sensing Rose's insight into the emotional workings of his brain, Scorpius quickly cast his eyes downward.

Rose reached for his hand again, but instead of holding it up for inspection, she intertwined her fingers with his.

"Scorpius you should really get this checked out. Maybe talk to your father or something," she suggested, not knowing what else to say.

"No," Scorpius spat, wrenching his hand away from hers as he stood up. He paced to the window and then turned to face her.

Rose, shocked by Scorpius' sudden display of anger, could do nothing but look at him.

"Don't you get it Rose? You're not my fucking girlfriend, so stop acting like it! What we did was a bit of fun. A one time deal. I'm over it. I've moved on. You should too."

He ran his hand through his hair in frustration, avoiding Rose's gaze once more.

"I don't get why this is so hard for you, Rose. Everyone knows I'm a nuisance to you. You're better off without me anyways," Scorpius continued in a calmer voice.

"A nuisance?" Rose asked, flabbergasted. "Scorpius, I haven't stopped thinking about you ever since Hogsmeade. I went home to get away from you, but instead I spent the whole two weeks worrying about my feelings for you when I should have been enjoying my time with my family. These past three months would have been hell if I hadn't been so bloody busy. You've hurt me so much. Let's be honest, we've hurt each other. You bring out a wickedness in me that frightens me." Rose took a deep breath in an attempt to calm herself. She was standing now and had advanced towards him.

"But every single time I come back. At first I thought it was just something physical, something I could control. But it's become something so much more despite my best efforts to smother it," she continued.

Scorpius turned his eyes to the view outside his window. Rose could tell by his stance that his whole body was tense.

Despite his attempts to ignore her, Rose pressed on.

"I've snuck around after hours. I almost let my schoolwork slide. I've lied to my family, and my best friend thinks I've abandoned him. I've done so much for you. I'm even wearing your stupid fucking dress!" The tears that she had been battling against finally broke through her defenses and began streaming down her cheeks. "So yes, Scorpius, you are a nuisance. You're a down right pain in my arse!" She took a deep shaky breath. "But I think I might love you." She hadn't planned to say it. She didn't know if it was true, it just came tumbling out.

Scorpius' heart jolted at the word, but he tried his best to keep calm.

"Rose, I think you should leave," Scorpius almost whispered, his voice strained.

Rose's mouth fell open. She had opened up to him. Shown him her emotional wounds, and this was all he could say? Suddenly her legs felt like they would snap in two from the pressure of gravity. She bent at her knees and stumbled back until her behind found the bed.

"Why do you hate me?" Rose asked, her voice weak and cracking. Her eyes pleaded for him to turn around and look at her.

Scorpius let out a long sigh before turning around to face her. He hated making her feel like this. All he wanted to do was wrap his arms around her and tell her everything was going to be ok, but he knew that doing that would just make this harder on both of them.

"I don't hate you. I could never hate you. We just can't be together…maybe we might have been able to before, but not anymore."

"Why? What happened? Why are things different now?" Rose pressed, not understanding the reason for Scorpius' behavior. She frantically tried to wipe her tears away, but despite her best efforts, they kept flowing.

"I wish I could tell you, but I can't," Scorpius responded. His eyes moved down to a lesion on his left hand, he began tracing it with his right index finger. "It's too dangerous."

That's when a thought popped into Rose's head, a horrible, dreadful thought, a thought that stayed her tears.

"Where were you last night Scorpius?" she asked urgently.

Now Scorpius chanced a glance at Rose, taken aback by the non sequitur.

"The scratches and bruises, you didn't have those when I saw you in the hallway yesterday," Rose began to verbally work out the evidence in her mind. She then remembered the calendar page she found in her bag "And last night was a full moon."

Scorpius cringed at the word. Once again he turned towards the window, obviously nervous.

"Scorpius, what happened?" Rose asked, her voice shaking.

Scorpius took a deep breath, and then another. He debated what to do next, and when he finally made a decision he walked away from the window to sit down next to Rose, still avoiding her eyes.

"During holiday, my father took me to our cabin in Norway for a hunting trip—I've never been fond of the sport. I detest actually. I went with him because Mother said it would be a good 'bonding experience.'" Scorpius clasped his hands in his lap.

"Anyways, I'm not quite sure how it happened, but I got separated from the group. Before I knew it, night had fallen. The forest we were in was really old, no branches I could reach to climb up."

Scorpius paused for a moment as he collected his thoughts. When he began to speak once more, the words came out slow and forced.

"Then I remember hearing the howls. I had never been so terrified in my life. I hoped that it was just wolves. I don't think I've ever wanted anything so badly…I was in the dark for what felt like hours. I had my wand out, but it didn't do any good. I was attacked from behind, taken off guard. My right shoulder…" Scorpius' cringed at the memory and his hand traveled to the scar.

"Rose, I've never felt so much pain." He finally looked up into her eyes, and Rose could still see the agony, the suffering, capsulated there. She reached for his hand, and this time he didn't reject it.

"I must've fought him off or something, though everything went black after I was bit. I woke up mostly in tact the next morning, except for my shoulder of course. One of my father's hunting buddies found me lying on the ground later that day," Scorpius finished.

"So, you're family knows?" Rose asked in a low voice.

"Oh Merlin, no!" Scorpius exclaimed. "If my father found out he would shoot me down like those poor animals he hunts for fun. I was able to hide it from him—wasn't hard because he's so fucking oblivious when it comes to me."

"I'm so sorry," was all Rose could manage to say. The weight of what Scorpius had told her took up residence on top of her chest. She squeezed his hand in an attempt to comfort him.

"Yeah. Me too," Scorpius sighed, looking back over towards the window.

Rose was overcome with an intense need to soothe his emotional pain. She bent her head to his shoulder and began to gently kiss along the curved line of his scar.

Scorpius turned towards her once more and she lifted her head to meet his stormy eyes. Their lips were centimeters away, and it only took a slight move of Rose's head to close the gap between them.

It was a matter of seconds before the kiss became more heated. Scorpius' fingers feverishly threaded through Rose's hair while Rose's hands grasped frantically at his back. The two were driven by the overwhelming need that enveloped them and had been growing painfully desperate since their last encounter.

The two crawled further onto the bed, lying down in each other's arms but never fully breaking their kiss.

Rose climbed on top of Scorpius, a growing desire in her core compelling her to get closer to his. She began to grind her hips against him and the sensation sent a wave of teasing ecstasy cascading through her body. She involuntarily moaned against his lips.

Scorpius sat up abruptly, wrenching his lips from Rose's, and firmly pushed her off him.

"Rose, we can't do this," Scorpius stated looking into her deep blue eyes before breaking the gaze to quickly swing his legs over the edge of the bed, stand up, and stride over to the window.

Rose sat up in the bed cross-legged, her eyes squinting in disbelief. She knew it wasn't a very lady-like position, especially in a dress, but she didn't care.

"Why not?" she managed to muster after some time had passed. "Just because you got bit? That doesn't change anything."

"You don't understand. It changes everything." Scorpius cast his eyes downward. "I'm a monster now."

Rose got up out of the bed and crossed over to him, putting her hand on his shoulder.

"Scorpius, you aren't a monster," she began. "I'm not trying to be insensitive here, but I don't think it's necessary to be this dramatic."

"Seriously?" Scorpius looked up at her in disbelief. "Out of all people I thought you would at least be sympathetic."

"I am, Scorpius. Really." She gave him a small smile and placed her other hand lovingly on his chin. "It's just…it's only once a month. There's Wolf's Bane Potion. You can still lead a semi normal life," she tried to reassure him.

"Yeah, a life being in constant fear of the bloody moon," Scorpius started, turning his head away from her hand. "Not to mention the public humiliation, the ridicule. You're basically an expert in Care of Magical Creatures, you should know that the world isn't very fond of half-humans."

"Yes, that is true," Rose began, all the while considering the best way to approach Scorpius' predicament. She did not know much on the subject, except for the 'successes' in the field that her mother off handedly remarked on every now and then.

"But, from what I've heard, over the past decade the ministry has done a lot of work in the area of Beings, increasing equality and raising awareness of Lycanthropy victims being at the forefront."

"Yeah, but they still have a long way to go. I've done my research. Once I sign the Werewolf Registry, I'm basically a criminal on parole for the rest of my life." Scorpius looked over at her. "You deserve someone better than that." He faced the window once more.

Although Rose was unable to counter his point about the Werewolf Registry, more for lack of knowledge than anything else, she was able to counter his second point.

"I deserve to be with the person I want to be with," Rose stated, positioning herself so she was in Scorpius' line of vision once more. "And right now, despite my better judgment—which has nothing to do with your werewolf status mind you—that person is you." She grabbed both of his hands and gently squeezed them.

The ends of Scorpius' lips turned up the slightest bit at Rose's words, but his face was still stricken with worry.

"I don't know if I can do this alone, but I really don't want to drag you into this, Rose," Scorpius said, this time fully looking her in the eyes, no longer trying to avoid their heart felt gaze. Telling Rose the truth felt like a weight was being taken from his shoulders. "This is going to be really difficult, and I don't want you to have to forsake your family and friends for me. It isn't fair to you."

Rose dug her top right incisors into her bottom lip in hesitation before answering. "I think it's best that we tackle one issue at a time. I told my mother about…well about us, and she basically gave me her blessing, which makes me feel a lot better about doing this," Rose smiled. "As for the rest of my family, what they don't know won't hurt them. At least for now." She unclasped her right hand from his and began to trace his scar with her finger. "All we should be worrying about for the time being is getting you in a comfortable place with all this. We'll also have to get matching collars, naturally," Rose joked.

"You're incredible, Rosie. You know that?" Scorpius chuckled. "I think you're the only person who can make me feel like shit one moment and fantastic the next."

"It's a special talent, I know," Rose beamed in mock pride.

Rose then wrapped her arms around Scorpius' neck. "Now Scorpius," she began tilting her chin down enough so she could look up at him through her long lashes. "I believe we were in the middle of something very important, that needs to be taken care of immediately," she purred seductively.

The mischievous smirk she both loved and hated crept across Scorpius' face. He picked her up bridal style, his abrupt movement causing Rose to shriek with glee. He quickly stumbled over to the bed and unceremoniously dropped her onto the white duvet. Rose's laughter at Scorpius' eagerness and apparent inability to hold her up was quickly silenced by Scorpius' voracious lips.

She kissed him back even more ravenously, turning the kiss into a battle. Scorpius parted his lips slightly out of shock, and Rose took the opportunity to slip her tongue inside his mouth.

Scorpius, his pride wounded by succumbing to Rose's sneaky tactics so easily, raised himself up on his knees, straddled her hips, and pinned her to the bed.

"No fair!" Rose cried, using all her might to push herself up onto her elbows. Scorpius took this as an open invitation to undo the zipper on the back of her dress. Rose stuck her tongue out at him, but did not otherwise protest his actions.

Scorpius sat back up on his knees so Rose had room to shimmy out of her dress and carefully place it on the floor. His eyes glanced up and down her now near-nude appearance before finally landing back to her eyes. He stared into the beautiful ocean in her irises that was stormy with passion.

He leaned down to and captured her lower lip, lightly tugging on it. His lips then began their journey downward, sucking on her pulse point. Rose's breath hitched at the sensation. He continued his loving worship of her body until he reached the sensitive skin below her navel. He reached his hand out the glide over her knickers, and Rose tensed in anticipation. She was overwhelmed with how much she wanted this.

"Scorpius!" a loud booming voice called from outside the room followed by the sound of heavy footsteps coming closer to the bedroom door.

Rose shot up the exact same moment Scorpius did, causing them to butt heads.

She attempted to stifle her cry of pain with her hand while Scorpius simultaneously swore under his breath

Rose's heart rate, which was already quick with passion, increased tenfold with anxiety.

"Hide in the bathroom," Scorpius whispered, getting up so Rose could dash over to the door.

Rose, who saw that the closet door was closer, decided to hide there instead.

Scorpius shot up out of the bed and went to grab the door, but was stopped when it flung open.

His father, a tall and lanky man the same height as his son, came bursting into the room.

His cold gray eyes, piercing but weary with age, scanned the room.

"Who else is in here?" he demanded.

"Wha-what are you talking about?" Scorpius stammered, his heart racing.

"Don't play games with me boy, I heard a girl squealing in here," his father pressed.

"I-I," Scorpius began, not knowing what to say. His father always had an annoying habit of catching his son completely off guard.

Mr. Malfoy pushed past Scorpius and opened the bathroom door. He pushed the shower curtain back to revel nothing.

Rose, who was watching these events play out from behind the closet keyhole briefly praised herself for going against Scorpius' suggestion.

Scorpius' father then walked over to the large bay window and looked out onto the grounds, as if believing someone would be willing to jump out of a three-story window to avoid his wrath.

He then spun around and saw Rose's dress lying on the ground.

"So you did have a little tart here," Draco snapped picking up the dress and holding it out to his son. "Where is she?" he insisted, throwing the dress into a crumpled heap on the bed. He took two strides over to the closet door when Scorpius finally found his voice.

"Yes, I did have someone here, but she apperated as soon as we heard you coming," Scorpius lied. "Who knows where she is now."

Mr. Malfoy abandoned his reach for the closet and turned his attention to his son.

"You have some nerve, you know that?" he began. "You don't show up to a party that your mother and I have been planning for months, and now I find out it's because you'd much rather be fucking around with some slag."

"That's not it at all," Scorpius countered, but stopped himself since he knew he couldn't tell his father the truth…that would be much worse then this.

"Then what was it?" his father pressed.

"You wouldn't understand," was all Scorpius could think to offer in reply.

"Well, as always, I'm extremely disappointed in you. Your mother and I raised you better than this," he shook his head in frustration. "Whenever the family needs you, your never there."

Scorpius' hand balled up into a fist. He wished that he could yell back at his father that in fact, it was him who was never there when Scorpius was in need, but he knew that his efforts would be fruitless. His father was too wrapped up in himself and his image to worry about his son's feelings.

"Now, your mother wants you down in the drawing room for tea. After that, you are to pack your bags and apperate back to Hogwarts. I don't want you in my house for one more night."

With that, Mr. Malfoy pushed past his son to exit the room, slamming the door behind him.

Rose waited another half a minute to make sure the coast was clear before she emerged once more.

"Scorpius, I—" she started, not knowing exactly what to say. She had totally been taken aback by the whole situation. Hadn't her mother told her Draco Malfoy had changed? It seemed to Rose that Mr. Malfoy was just as bad as the stories her father used to tell of him, despite her mother protesting that her husband was over exaggerating. How could anyone be that cruel to their own child?

"No, don't" Scorpius began, his voice barely above a whisper. "Don't say anything."

This time Rose did not protest Scorpius' wishes. She kept her mouth shut, and instead walked over to him. She wrapped her arms around him, giving him a slight squeeze. Scorpius stood there for a moment, his arms hanging awkwardly. He waited for her to let go, but she did not move. Finally, he slowly raised his arms and returned her embrace.

"Everything's going to be ok," was all Rose allowed herself to say. She knew it was what Scorpius needed to hear right now. It was what they both needed to hear.

"I should go down to see, Mother," Scorpius said after what seemed like ages, before pulling apart from Rose. "You should get dressed and hang out in the bathroom until I come back. I shouldn't be too long. You can Side-Along back to Hogwarts with me."

Rose nodded and sat down on the bed as Scorpius went to his closet, grabbed some clothing, and headed into the bathroom to change. When he emerged once more, he nodded to Rose before heading out the door.

After an hour, Scorpius returned. He hastily packed the meager amount of clothing he had brought with him and before Rose knew it, they were standing outside of Hogwarts' gates.

"We should probably head in separately," Scorpius suggested.

"Yeah, that'd probably be for the best," Rose agreed.

"You can go first. I'll hang back. I have a bit to think about anyways," Scorpius offered.

"Now you promise that you won't go back to ignoring me?" Rose asked with a small chuckle.

"Yeah," Scorpius answered, although his somber tone did not do much to reassure Rose's nerves.

She smiled at him once more before beginning the long uphill tread to the castle.

_**A/N: So I hope this chapter being twice as long as usual made up for the dreadful lack of Scorpius in the past few chapters. I know this was a bit of an emotional rollercoaster, but I tried my best to make it real and heartfelt and to avoid making it cliché and overdramatic. Feedback in this area would be uber helpful!**_

_**If you feel the least bit compelled to, please review! It motivates me to write quicker, haha :D **_

_**Thanks again for your support!**_


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